The Bedside Reflections of Bell Gamgee
by oselle
Summary: Sam's mother is called upon to look after Frodo, who has fallen ill not long after moving to Bag End.
1. A Night's Watch

_Author's Note: I take a great, guilty pleasure in YoungSickFrodo fics, and thought I would try my hand at one. It has turned out to be much harder and slower than I imagined, therefore, this is a work in progress. Some medical notes follow this chapter, for those that are interested._  
  
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Bell Goodchild Gamgee was sitting a deathwatch.  
  
Four days had passed since her husband had asked her to go to Bag End and look in on young Mr. Frodo, who had seemed to be doing quite poorly.   
  
"I don't claim to know much about caring for young folk," he had said, "But Mr. Frodo ain't gettin' any better, and seems a far sight worse than he did just yesterday. You can make him stay in bed, if nothing else."  
  
Now, four days later, Bell sat in the sickroom shadows of Bag End, listening to the boy's labored breathing and the lonely sound of sleet tapping against the windowpane. Making Frodo stay in bed was hardly the problem anymore: indeed, it seemed likely that he might never rise from it again.   
  
Pneumonia, the physician had said it was. The treatments had been simple at first. "Keep him warm, but not too warm. Sponge him down when his fever rises, but don't let him get a chill. Make sure you keep liquids in him." The prescriptions became more complicated with each passing day, and Bell had begun to recognize desperation in both the physician's treatments and his face. Bell had held Frodo over steaming bowls of water. She had rubbed sharp-smelling ointments on his back and chest. She had applied heated cups to draw out the infection in his lungs. She had pounded on his back to loosen the phlegm, an effort that had only made Frodo vomit. Yesterday, the last day the physician had called, he had suggested, as a last resort, puncturing Frodo's lung with a large needle to release the infected fluid. It had been known to work, in some cases.   
  
"How many cases?" Bell had asked.   
  
"Well, it worked on Mr. Brockhouse, just last year."  
  
"And how many times _hasn't_ it worked?"  
  
The physician had cleared his throat. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he had replied, "It _is_ a last resort, Mrs. Gamgee. Those patients would most likely…would _surely_ have died, anyway."   
  
Bell had thanked the physician and shown him the door.   
  
Bell rose from her seat beside the fireplace and went to Frodo, who sat propped against a wall of pillows in his cousin Bilbo's bed. Her eldest son, Hamson, had carried the boy here after Frodo had soaked through his own bedclothes during the last bad spell. It would be a while before that mattress could be used again.   
  
She sponged Frodo's face with cool water, more in the desperate need to feel useful than out of any belief that such treatment could help him. His face was the color of fireplace ashes, and his lips had taken on a bluish tinge, as if he were drowning. _But he is drowning,_ Bell thought with dismay. _Drowning right here in his own bed._  
  
At her touch, Frodo opened his eyes a bit. In the dimly-lit room, Bell could not see their color, only the glitter of fever that lay in them. Yet his eyes seemed to focus on her, and Bell thought that he might be having a brief lapse in delirium.   
  
"Tonight?" he asked in a whisper.  
  
"What is tonight, Frodo?"  
  
"Will I die tonight?"  
  
Bell shook her head vehemently. "Oh, no!" she said, as cheerfully as she could. "Of course not!" Bell would never admit to the boy that he was dying; it simply was not done. A hobbit could be half-crushed beneath a tree, and all around would politely insist that he was quite all right, up until the very moment he expired.   
  
"Good," he said, and to Bell's wonder, Frodo smiled and patted her hand, as if to assure her that he knew she lied, but he appreciated the kindness, nevertheless. "I'd hate to miss Bilbo."  
  
"The Gaffer's out looking for him, dear. He'll be home soon."  
  
Frodo did not answer. His eyes left Bell's face and he gazed into the fire, blinking heavily. After a moment, he whispered, "Can I lie down? My back aches."  
  
"No, Frodo dear," she replied, saddened at being unable to grant him even this simple wish. "It will make your breathing worse."  
  
"Oh," he said, and closed his eyes wearily.  
  
Bell looked at Frodo with pity. He had never been a stout lad, but this illness had drained him until he seemed as frail as a dandelion puff. She did not think he would have the strength to survive the night. Still, she tried to cling to hope. She had seen others who were this ill, and then something had risen up in them, and they had turned the corner on their own. It would be this way with Frodo. His fever could go no higher without killing him; he would turn the corner, or he would die before daybreak. An illness like this always took them at night, it seemed.   
  
Bell sighed and put the washcloth on the nightstand. She leaned forward and took Frodo under the arms, shushing him gently when he made a soft, confused sound in his throat. Settling back upon the pillows, Bell laid Frodo against herself, his head nestled into her shoulder, his battered chest against her healthy one, and she rocked him and rubbed his back and hummed to him. This was how she had gotten her little ones to sleep when they were sick, and it might not do Frodo any good at all, but at least it would give him some fleeting comfort before he passed.  
  
"There you go, dear," she crooned soothingly. "Sleep is what you need. Sleep, sleep, sleep," she whispered.  
  
Bell rocked Frodo and listened to the sleet at the window, to the fire in the grate, to the rattle of the boy's breath. She would cling to hope, because it was her nature, but in her heart, she knew the truth. She was sitting a deathwatch.   
  
  
  
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_Notes on Medical Details: The practice of applying "heated cups" to a sick person is a traditional remedy along the lines of bloodletting. In the practice, a lit match or piece of paper is put into a special glass cup, which is then applied to the patient's skin. The vacuum effect that results is supposed to draw infection or fever out of the body. Several cups are used at once. This treatment was still in use when my parents were children, and remains a common practice in some parts of the world and in some schools of traditional medicine. **This treatment, like most medical treatments, should only be practiced by a trained professional. No medical details in this story are intended as any sort of advice. In other words, do NOT try this at home!**   
  
The idea of lung-puncturing as a last-resort cure for pneumonia might sound laughably medieval, but it was this very treatment that killed my paternal grandfather as recently as 1944. No penicillin was available, so the village doctor performed this "cure" upon him to drain the infection. My grandfather was a young man at the time, and might have eventually survived the pneumonia, but he died within days from blood poisoning in the puncture wound. So, thank goodness for Mrs. Gamgee's perception here!_


	2. Bell Pays a Visit

**Chapter 2: Bell Pays a Visit**

"I don't claim to know much about caring for young folk," Hamfast said, "But Mr. Frodo ain't gettin' any better, and seems a far sight worse than he did just yesterday. You can make him stay in bed, if nothing else."  
  
Bell dried her hands briskly on her apron and looked at her husband. "What on earth was Mr. Bilbo thinking, leaving the boy alone and sick like that? And where has he gotten himself off to this time, anyhow?"  
  
"He said something about going up to the North Farthing, but truth be told, Bell, Mr. Bilbo does talk so much that sometimes I don't hear all he says. He could be up a tree in the Old Forest, for all I know. And Mr. Frodo wasn't near so sick when he left, just sick enough not to go along, like he was ought."  
  
"The North Farthing!" Bell exclaimed. "Mr. Bilbo needs to remember he's not quite the carefree bachelor anymore, and leave such silliness behind him."   
  
"There's naught we can do about Mr. Bilbo now, Bell. You know his ways. Just promise me you'll look in on that lad, when you get a chance."  
  
"I'll go right now," she said matter-of-factly, taking off her apron. She went to the front hall and put on her cloak, and pulled up the hood, for the day had an end-of-winter rawness to it, and a dreary March rain was falling.   
  
Bell hurried up the hill to Bag End, muttering to herself about Bilbo and his flighty ways. She liked Bilbo well enough, as far as she knew him, and he had always been a good master to her husband. But she had little tolerance for anyone who was careless about children. His cousin Frodo, now at Bag End since June, was not exactly a child, but he was just barely into his tweens, and was hardly old enough to be left all by himself when feeling poorly. Bilbo was kind enough, to be sure, and it certainly wasn't any of her business, but Bell didn't quite consider Bilbo a suitable guardian for a boy of Frodo's age.   
  
Indeed, Bell thought as the March drizzle stung her face, she wasn't sure what those Brandybucks over on the other side of the river had been thinking, putting their young relation in the care of someone with Bilbo's reputation. Perhaps they had not concerned themselves overmuch with Frodo. He was an orphan, after all, and such was often the way with orphans. Without their own parents to watch over them, they were shunted from relation to relation, either growing up wild or withdrawn. It was sad, but not unlikely that Bilbo's adoption of the boy had caused little stir at Brandy Hall.   
  
Bell had been to Bag End so infrequently that she didn't feel right going up to the front door, even though it was closest to the path. She went around to the back of the smial and let herself in through the kitchen door.   
  
The kitchen was tidy and a low fire still burned upon the hearth—her Hamfast had seen to that. Save for the crackling of the fire, it was so quiet that she would have thought the place empty.   
  
"Mr. Frodo?" she called out. "Mr. Frodo, sir?"  
  
She heard, or thought she heard, a voice answer hers, but it was interrupted by a burst of wet, heavy coughing. At the sound of it, Bell rolled her eyes. "He's sick, all right," she muttered to herself, and took off her cloak. She thought she might be staying a while.   
  
Bell did not know her way around Bag End, but she needed only to follow the sound of coughing down to a small study—Bilbo's study, she assumed, where he wrote about all those adventures he claimed to have had. She found Frodo in an overstuffed chair by the fireplace; the fire was blazing and the boy had wrapped himself in a blanket, but even from the doorway Bell could see that his teeth were chattering.   
  
"Mr. Frodo," she said. "Begging your pardon, sir, but you don't sound like anyone who should be out of bed." She studied his face. "And you don't _look _like one, either." The boy's face was drained of color save for the fever-brightness of his eyes and the bruised shadows beneath them. He had a book in his lap, which she doubted he had so much as opened, since a small collection of damp handkerchiefs was wadded up on its cover. On the table next to him sat the breakfast that her husband had prepared, apparently untouched.   
  
"Hello, Mrs. Gamgee," he said with a wan smile. "The Gaffer told me you might stop in. It's very kind of you, but I told him you didn't have to. I'm all right, Mrs. Gamgee, really."  
  
"Mr. Frodo, you look about as far from all right as a body can get."  
  
He flapped a wet handkerchief at her. "It's nothing. It's a head cold." Then, as if his body wished to give lie to his claim, he was suddenly doubled over by another bout of hard, phlegmy coughs.   
  
Bell patted Frodo's back through the episode. She did not like the thick, yellow look of the mucus that he spat into his handkerchief, nor did she like the way he seemed to labor to catch his breath between coughs. When the fit subsided, Frodo sat for a moment with his eyes closed and his hand pressed to his chest, panting for breath.   
  
"I don't have to ask you if that hurt," Bell said. "You need to be in bed, Mr. Frodo, with a nice hot water bottle on your chest, not sitting up here tiring yourself out."  
  
He opened his eyes and looked up at her. "I've been in bed for three days," he said miserably. "And I haven't gotten any better. And I wasn't able to go with Bilbo because of this." A feverish shudder ran through him.  
  
Bell brushed aside Frodo's limp curls and laid the back of her hand on his forehead. She almost winced at the heat there. "Why, you're positively on fire, Mr. Frodo!" she said. "You should thank your stars you didn't go anywhere with Mr. Bilbo. What if you were out in the woods, and sick like this?"  
  
Frodo only frowned and drew his knees up to his chest.   
  
"All right," she said briskly. Frodo may be the future master of Bag End, but right now he was just a sick, cranky tween and it was high time he listened to her. "You're going straight to bed. I'll make some tea for that cough and bring it in to you. Come on now." She made a motion as if to help him out of the chair, but he waved her off.   
  
"I can get out of a chair by myself, Mrs. Gamgee," he said with a wry smile.   
  
"Well, of course you can," Bell responded, but she noticed the way he paused at the edge of his seat, as if needing to muster his strength before standing. She wished that Hamfast had sent her over here sooner.   
  
When Frodo stood up, the handkerchiefs in his lap fell to the floor, and both Bell and Frodo stooped to pick them up.   
  
"Please, I've got them," he said, and then he added, "They're not very pleasant."  
  
Bell had to smile at his embarrassment. "Now, Mr. Frodo. I've raised six children. Nothing's going to come out of you that I'd be dainty about!"  
  
He looked up at her. "Mrs. Gamgee!" he said, and in spite of the circumstances, the youthful mortification on his face was so comical that Bell could not help laughing out loud.   
  
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The porridge breakfast that Hamfast had made for Frodo had chilled to the point of being unsalvageable. Bell scraped it into the pail by the sink and made soft-boiled eggs and toast, and a pot of honeyed peppermint tea. Even from the kitchen, Bell could hear Frodo's thick coughing. "The lad has no head cold," Bell said to herself. "If it doesn't get worse than this, he'll be the lucky one."  
  
Again, she followed the sound of coughing down Bag End's long halls to find Frodo's room. It was a comfortable, but small-seeming room, and Bell had no doubt it would have appeared larger if Bilbo were more insistent about making Frodo tidy up his things. Indeed, almost every available surface, be it windowsill, desk, or dresser, was cluttered with books, or pens, or paper or inkpots, and the wardrobe doors stood ajar, seeming to barely hold at bay an avalanche of unfolded clothing.   
  
Frodo was lying curled on his side, coughing until his face had reddened. Bell set the tray down next to the bed and sat Frodo up by his shoulders.  
  
"Now, you shouldn't be lying down with a cough like that. Sitting up is what's best if you want to keep from wearing yourself out." Frodo nodded as Bell stacked pillows behind his back. He sank back onto the pillows, once again with his hand upon his chest.  
  
Bell settled the tray on Frodo's lap and he looked at it with dismay.   
  
"My aunts used to say you should _starve _a fever," he said.  
  
"Maybe they starve fevers over there in Buckland," Bell answered, "But I never heard of any hobbit keeping up his health by not eating." She gave the boy a quick sweep with her eyes. "And you certainly haven't got much you can spare from your bones, Mr. Frodo, if you don't mind my saying so."   
  
"I don't mind you saying it. Everyone else does."  
  
"Then you'd best get started," Bell said. She hugged her arms, feeling a chill in the room. It was the last thing Frodo needed. Hamfast had laid a fire here earlier in the morning, but now it had burned down to red embers. She knelt down in front of the fireplace and stirred up the coals, and put more wood onto them.  
  
"How long have you been feeling poorly, Mr. Frodo?"  
  
"I woke up with a runny nose four days ago," he answered. "And Bilbo delayed his trip to see if I'd get any better and could go with him. But I wasn't any better the next day, and Bilbo said I should stay home and rest."   
  
"And where did Mr. Bilbo go?"  
  
"To see a company of dwarves, passing through the North Farthing, near Greenfields. Friends of his, from his travels. He wanted to see them again, for he didn't know when they'd pass this way again." Frodo sighed. "It would have been wonderful to meet them. Bilbo said I could come next time, but I don't think there will be dwarves in the Shire for a while to come."   
  
Bell could hear the disappointment in Frodo's voice. "Well, that's the thing about a nasty bug, Mr. Frodo. It don't care much what other plans you have." She turned around and saw that Frodo was sipping his tea, but had not touched anything else on his tray. "Those eggs will turn to cold jelly if you don't eat them soon, Mr. Frodo." She sat down on the edge of his bed and folded her hands in her lap, to show that she could wait all day for him to finish his meal.   
  
Frodo gave her a pathetic look and put a forkful of eggs into his mouth. He swallowed it with a grimace. "My throat hurts."  
  
"Of course it does, what with you hacking away like that. But you need to keep up your strength, and I saw you didn't make so much as a dent in what the Gaffer put up for you this morning."   
  
Bell thought that if she kept up a conversation, she could distract Frodo enough to finish eating. She looked around the room for something to talk about. "Such a lot of books!" she finally said. "My Samwise is always telling me Bag End is full of books. He's very happy that Mr. Bilbo is learning him his letters."  
  
"Sam is a quick study. Bilbo is happy to do it."  
  
"I'm not sure what good it will do him, but it can't do him no harm, I suppose. I hope he's no bother to you."  
  
"Oh no, I like having him here. He's always excited about everything!"  
  
Bell laughed. "Yes, that's Sam. He's awful fond of Mr. Bilbo. And you too, Mr. Frodo. Thinks the world of you, he does."  
  
Frodo smiled. "I can't imagine why!" he said. "Sam is a good lad. He'll always have a place here, Mrs. Gamgee, as long as Bilbo or I are here. When the Gaffer's ready to retire, I mean."  
  
"Why, thank you, Mr. Frodo," Bell said, struck by the boy's graciousness. "It's good to know that a new master of Bag End won't be changing the way things are done."  
  
"I can hardly imagine being master of Bag End, or anything else for that matter!"   
  
"You will, though," Bell said. "Mr. Bilbo hasn't any children, and he knows it's only fitting that a Baggins should take over the place. And he does think kindly of you, from what my Hamfast tells me."  
  
"And I think very kindly of him," Frodo said with a smile. He looked down at his plate, and the smile faded. "I don't think I can eat any more," he said. "My appetite is quite off."  
  
Bell saw that he had eaten half of the eggs and toast, and drunk most of his tea. She supposed this would be the most she could hope for right now. She took the tray from his lap and stood up.  
  
"Why don't you get some sleep then? You look just about done in, Mr. Frodo."  
  
"All right Mrs. Gamgee. I _am _rather tired, now that you mention it."  
  
"I'll be popping over to home to fix up some luncheon, but I'll come right back to look in on you."  
  
"Mmm-hmm," Frodo said. His eyes were already closed.   
  
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After tidying up the kitchen, Bell made some more tea, to leave by Frodo's bed if he should wake, and then went to check on him before returning home. He was sleeping. Bell leaned over him to listen to his breathing. It was not particularly labored, but she could hear a deep, watery sound in his chest that made her uncomfortable. But, if she could keep Frodo in bed, and keep him warm, he should be all right.   
  
Bell studied Frodo for a moment, in the light of the fire and the dim March afternoon. This was certainly the most she had ever seen of him, for she had little business at Bag End, and he had even less at Bagshot Row. She recalled the first time she had ever seen him, on a bright June day the summer before last, when he had come to stay with Bilbo for a while.   
  
Frodo had shaken her hand and been terribly polite, and Bell had thought he was quite courteous, but too pale, and too thin, and too grave for a lad his age. Indeed, he had made little impression on her, save for two things. She had been struck by his eyes, which were remarkable, as blue as an autumn sky and just as bright. But she had noticed something else as well, something she could not describe quite as easily. She had sensed a faint air of sadness, and neglect, about him, and not in any aspect of his figure or clothing, for he was as tidy and well dressed as Bilbo. No, this was in the way he carried himself, and how he walked with his hands in his pockets, and the soft manner of his speech. Bell had seen this before, upon widows, and spinsters and indeed, upon orphans. It was the neglected look of those who have long come to believe that they are dear to no one.   
  
In spite of her reservations about Bilbo, Bell had been happy when she had heard that he planned to adopt the lad. Perhaps time away from that great crowd at Brandy Hall would help to erase that air of neglect. He was too young to have such a look upon him.  
  
Bell had not thought of Frodo again until December, a few days after Yule, the day that Bilbo had come home early from Buckland. Little Sam had gone with his father to help him warm up Bag End and prepare dinner, and Sam had come home in a state of high excitement. But it had been suppertime, and Daisy and May had been sniping at each other all day, and the roast had almost burned, and Bell had not been able to listen to Sam until she was tucking him into his bed that night.   
  
"I saw his picture, Mummy…Mr. Frodo's picture. Mr. Bilbo drew it and hung it right up over his desk."  
  
"And what did he look like?" Bell had asked smiling. Sam had long been fascinated by Bilbo, and he had heard him speak so often and so fondly of his young cousin that Sam had grown fascinated with Frodo as well, even sight unseen. Sam had had the measles in June, and had been dreadfully disappointed when he had found out that he had missed Frodo's brief visit.   
  
Sam had dropped his voice to an awestruck whisper. "Just like an elf, Mummy. Dad thought I was silly to say so, but that's just what he looked like. An elf."  
  
"Oh, and then you've seen many elves to compare him to, I suppose?"  
  
"No, but…" Sam's had pondered what he would say next. "He looked like I always thought an elf should look."  
  
"And how is that?"  
  
"Well, his face was…not roundy. It was pointy."  
  
"Pointy?" Bell had asked laughing. "Like a fox, you mean? And did he have big ears?" she asked teasingly. She had reached under the covers and tickled Sam. "And did he have a big bushy tail, too?"  
  
Sam had giggled and then, with all the gravity an eight-year-old could summon, he had said, "Now, Mummy, you're being silly! Besides…it _was _just a picture of his _face_," he had added, as if Frodo was so extraordinary that the possibility of him having a tail was not entirely out of the question.   
  
Bell had laughed again, at her serious little Sam, and she had finished tucking him in, and kissed him goodnight, and blown out the candle. Just before she had left his room, she had heard Sam murmur sleepily, "He was very beautiful." She had paused, and smiled, and thought of the grave, pale boy that she had seen that summer, and how unusual it was that her Sam would find him beautiful.   
  
Her two eldest daughters had certainly not shared their brother's opinion. Daisy had been just fifteen that summer of Frodo's first visit to Bag End, and as silly as she could have possibly been. Her little sister, May, adored her, and appeared to be following in her footsteps as far as the silliness went. At any rate, a storm of giggles seemed to follow the two girls wherever they went, and Bell had become quite accustomed to the sound of it, ringing like chimes throughout Bagshot Row. On an afternoon not long after Frodo had arrived, they had burst into the kitchen, chattering like magpies and hiding their giggles behind plump hands.   
  
"And what might you two be laughing over now?" Bell had asked. "I suppose you finally went and took a peek at this cousin of Mr. Bilbo's that you were so curious about?"   
  
Daisy had tossed her head dismissively and pouted. "Oh, pooh, Mum, he's just a skinny little thing."  
  
"There are some as might find him fair. Takes after his mum, they say."  
  
"That he does," Daisy had said with a sly glance at her sister. "In fact, he looks just like…a lass!" She and May had covered their mouths and erupted in the sort of laughter that belongs only to girls of that age: merry, and yet somehow cruel.   
  
"Yes, Mum, it's true!" piped May, in an obvious attempt to impress her sister. "He's got bluuuuuuuue eyes," she had trilled dramatically, "And loooooooong lashes, and he's just as white as milk!" The two girls had burst into hysterics.  
  
Bell had suddenly thought of the courteous youth that she had just met, with his blue eyes and his clinging sadness, and felt a sudden irritation with her daughters. "Now you two stop that," she had snapped. "You should be ashamed of yourselves, making fun of someone you don't even know. And who's likely to be master of Bag End someday, too, and is someone you should have a little respect for, if only because he's Mr. Bilbo's cousin. Now out of here, both of you, and go find something useful to turn your silly heads to!"   
  
The girls had run off with injured looks upon their faces, but just a few moments later, Bell had heard their bubbling laughter, just as merry as before.   
  
Now as she looked at Frodo's sleeping face, she thought that it was her youngest boy, her Sam, who had been right. Frodo _was _beautiful. His face had a strange angularity, the "pointiness" that Sam had seen, that was pleasing to the eye rather than harsh, perhaps because it was so different from the round faces of most boys his age. He was pale from his illness, but even in good health, Bell knew that his complexion was so fair that he hardly seemed to have grown up in the rustic wilds of Buckland. His hair, and brows and lashes were very dark, almost black, an agreeable contrast to his face, and his mouth was full, and finely shaped.   
  
And yet, even more than his face, Bell noticed his hands, which lay crossed upon his coverlet. They were very fair in color, with long slender fingers, a scholar's hands, as fine as porcelain. Bell placed one of her own sturdy hands over his, feeling the delicate chain of his knuckles beneath her fingertips. Suddenly, and inexplicably, Bell hoped that Frodo would never need to turn those elegant hands to anything harsher than paper and pen.   
  
Frodo stirred and opened his eyes. "What is the time?" he asked drowsily.  
  
"It's one o'clock. I'll be going home for a little while now. How do you feel?"  
  
"Hot," he said. "Tired."  
  
"Well that's to be expected, with your fever. Sleep is the best thing in the world for you. I've left some tea here, if you get thirsty."  
  
Frodo's eyes glanced over at the bedside table and he nodded. Bell rose to leave.  
  
"Will you come back?" he asked.   
  
Bell leaned over and patted the slender white hand upon the coverlet. "Of course I will, dear. Of course."


	3. An Uncommon Child

Chapter 3: An Uncommon Child 

Hamfast was stacking logs by the kitchen hearth when she returned.  
  
"How is the boy?" he asked.  
  
"The boy is sick, Ham, right sick. 'Tis a very good thing you sent me over there."  
  
"Should we send for the physician?"  
  
"I'll have Daisy run down and fetch him for this afternoon, or first thing tomorrow morning. The lad has a rattle in his chest, and I don't like the sound of it."  
  
"Do ye think he should be alone up there?' Hamfast asked.  
  
"No," Bell answered, tying on her apron. "I think I should go and stay with him, at least until his fever breaks. Left to himself, he'll be sitting up in that study like I found him, and not eating a thing, neither. Ham…did Mr. Bilbo say when he'd be getting back?"  
  
"No, but it's a good two days on a pony to get to the North Farthing, three days in nasty weather like this. He's probably there by now, but I can't imagine he's going to turn right around and come back. I expect he'll be gone another four days or so, at the least."  
  
"You might need to ride up there and fetch him," Bell said. "Fetch him home."  
  
"Is it so grim as that?"  
  
"No, but there's no knowing what will happen in a few days. I don't think Mr. Bilbo would want to be away, if he knew the lad was sick. T'would be best to have him home, for Mr. Frodo's sake, too."  
  
"I should start today, do you think?"  
  
"No, not yet. We'll wait for the physician and then…we'll think on what to do after that." Bell sighed. She had much to think about, and she didn't want to make the wrong decision. She would wait for the physician before sending for Bilbo, and she would tend to practical matters in the meantime. "Go out to the henhouse and wring a chicken for me. I'd like to make a broth for Mr. Frodo."  
  
Bell set herself to preparing a luncheon for her family. She was standing at the sink when she felt a small tug on her skirts.  
  
"Sam…what is it?  
  
"Is Mr. Frodo sick? Dad says you're going to stay with him at Bag End."  
  
"Yes, Sam, Mr. Frodo is sick. He just needs some looking after."  
  
"Can I come with you? To look after, I mean?"  
  
"No, Sam. Mr. Frodo needs rest and quiet, he won't be able to sit up and read with you."  
  
Sam drew his brows together. "I wouldn't be no bother to him, Mummy. I'll keep him company. He needs company, what with Mr. Bilbo not home. And I'll read to him, and I'll keep the fire going, and I'll help him get better."   
  
"No, Sam."  
  
"But…" Sam clutched Bell's sleeve. "I want to look after him, too. Dad says that will probably be my job one day, anyway. Mr. Frodo won't mind…he won't mind if I…if I start the job early, so to speak. I'll make myself useful. Please, Mummy."  
  
Bell wiped her hands on the towel and then crouched down to Sam's level. She looked at him for a moment, at his earnest face and his wide, nut-brown eyes, so full of concern. Of all her children, Bell understood Sam the least. He was as happy as any of his siblings, and just as simple and easy to please. But he had a strange seriousness about him, and a way of looking at things that her other children did not share. At times, he seemed older than his years, and far more thoughtful. It was this, this _difference _in him, that made him spend long summer afternoons in Bilbo's musty study, hunched over his copy book while his brothers and sisters played in the sunlight; it was this that made him see beauty in the plain pencil drawing of a sad-eyed youth. His father worried that the boy had his head in the clouds, and hoped he would grow out of it. Bell worried about Sam as well, but she also delighted in his difference, and often wondered how two hobbits as plain and ordinary as Hamfast Gamgee and herself could have produced such an uncommon child. She loved all her children equally, as all mothers do, but in her secret heart, Bell kept a little space that was just for her youngest boy, her Samwise.   
  
"I'm sorry, Sam," she said to him with a smile. "I know you want to see Mr. Frodo, but you can't go over there just now. I don't know what Mr. Frodo's got, and I don't want you getting sick. And he's in bed right now, sleeping, and needs to sleep. He wouldn't even be awake when you were there. I'll tell him you're thinking of him, though, and you can come see him just as soon as he's feeling better."  
  
Sam looked crestfallen. "_Will _you tell me, Mummy, just as soon as he starts to feel better?"  
  
"Of course I will, Sam."  
  
"And will you tell _him _that Sam says hello and hope he feels better right soon? Just like that?"  
  
"Just like that. Yes, Sam."  
  
Sam's face brightened and he put his arms around Bell's neck and kissed her cheek. "Thank you, Mummy!"  
  
"Well, you're welcome Sam," Bell said, and hugged him. She straightened up and said, "Now go find Daisy. I have an errand for her to run for me. Go on."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It was late afternoon when Bell made her way back up the hill to Bag End, carrying a plucked chicken in a sack for Frodo's dinner. The physician had said he could not come until tomorrow morning, and Bell hoped she would find the boy no worse than she had left him.   
  
Bag End was in shadow when she entered, and very quiet. _At least he isn't coughing himself sick, _Bell thought. Surely, that was a good sign.   
  
Frodo's room was dim except for the last bit of daylight at the window and the faint glow of the embers on the hearth. Frodo was propped up on his pillows, and seemed to be deeply asleep, yet even from across the room, Bell could hear the watery rattle of his breathing. She lit a candle to have a look at him. When she came to his bedside, she saw that the chamber pot had been pulled out from underneath the bed, and she was dismayed to find the remains of his small breakfast in it.   
  
"I'm sorry," Frodo said. Bell had been so certain he was asleep that she jumped at the sound of his voice. "I couldn't keep it down. I did try."  
  
Bell set the pot back on the floor and sat on the edge of Frodo's bed. In spite of having slept most of the afternoon, he looked even paler than before, with a feverish bewilderment in his eyes.  
  
"I know you tried, Mr. Frodo. Maybe the egg was too heavy for you. I'm going to make you some nice light broth. How does that sound?"  
  
From the look that passed across Frodo's face, it appeared to sound nauseating, but he forced a smile and said, "That would be nice."  
  
She laid her hand on the back of Frodo's neck. "You're warmer than before. I think your temperature's gone up. Sometimes that happens, at the end of the day."  
  
"Yes, it has been worse in the evenings," he said, and Bell wondered how sick Frodo had really been, these past few nights that he had spent alone. Again, she was grateful to Hamfast for noticing that the boy was ill, and for sending her over here to take care of him.   
  
"How's your chest?"  
  
"It aches. It hurts to breathe. Coughing makes it worse."  
  
"Well, the physician's coming tomorrow morning, first thing. You'll be up and about in no time."  
  
Frodo smiled and closed his eyes.   
  
Bell picked up the chamber pot from the floor and rose. "I'll fix you some tea. You must be thirsty. Maybe you'd like a bit of toast, or a dry biscuit, Mr. Frodo?"  
  
He opened his eyes and smiled at her. "No, tea is fine. I don't think I can eat right now." His eyes fell upon the chamber pot in her hand. "Mrs. Gamgee?"  
  
"Yes, Mr. Frodo?"  
  
"Given the situation, I think that just 'Frodo' will be fine. There's no sense in being…what did you call it…_dainty?_"  
  
Bell smiled. "Well all right then," she said. "It'll be just plain 'Frodo.' At least t'will be as long as I'm carrying your chamber pot around."  
  
Frodo laughed at that and then winced, as though it pained him. He let his head fall back onto his pillows and closed his eyes.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
That bit of laughter was the evening's last moment of levity. By the time the broth was ready, Frodo had fallen into such a listless stupor that he was barely able to hold his spoon and indeed, by the end of the meal, Bell needed to feed him herself.   
  
She prepared hot water bottles for his chest, and cool compresses for his head, but he was irritable and confused and pushed them off, again and again. He seemed to be in awful pain when he coughed, even worse than he had been in the morning, and it took him long minutes to recover from each bout.   
  
Bell resorted to an old family method to quiet his cough and help him sleep, a cup of strong chamomile tea, heavily laced with honey and brandy. The brandy in Bilbo's pantry was rich and dark as syrup, and stored in a crystal bottle of such exquisite and unusual craft that Bell was almost timid to touch it. She wondered where Bilbo could have gotten it, for such elegant glasswork did not come from the Shire, nor did such rare liquor.   
  
Wherever it had come from, it was certainly potent, for Frodo finally quieted and fell asleep. Bell sighed with relief and, after making sure the boy was securely tucked in, she stretched out to sleep on the little bed in the unused room next to Frodo's.   
  
In her light sleep, Bell walked in a dark place, a narrow passage of rock. Sheer cliffs rose up on either side of her, to what terrible heights she could not imagine. She saw the red glow of fire ahead of, and felt a scorching heat upon her face and arms. _'Tis the fever, _she thought. _We must bring down the fever. _Suddenly, the rocky passage opened before her, and she found herself on a great cliff, above a valley of fire. At the edge of the cliff, far ahead of her, she saw a slight, delicate figure silhouetted against a wall of flame, and she began to run towards it. _Frodo! _she tried to call out, but the name that came to her lips was not Frodo's but that of her youngest son. "Sam!" she shrieked desperately. "Samwise!"   
  
Bell awoke with a start, her son's name in her throat. Frodo was coughing in the next room, a horrible, choking sound, and Bell shook off the remnants of the dream, and went to see to him.   
  
  
  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
_Author's Note: Karen Wynn Fonstad's wonderful "The Atlas of Middle Earth" claims that the distance from Bag End to the town of Greenfields, in the North Farthing, is approximately 75 miles. Bilbo has gone to somewhere in the North Farthing "near Greenfields," so I'm imagining that he's about 60 miles from home. Assuming that a pony can travel at about an average pace of 5 miles per hour, it would take one-and-a-half to two days to get to the North Farthing, depending upon how many hours Bilbo rode per day._


	4. The Gaffer's Errand

Chapter 4: The Gaffer's Errand 

Author's Note: For anyone who was confused, the main action of this story is set in a later time than the first chapter. The first chapter is set four days after Bell first comes to take care of Frodo. The second chapter takes you back to that first day that Bell visited Bag End.   
  


This chapter contains some medical unpleasantness. Once again, none of the treatments described in this story are meant to be any kind of medical recommendation. We have penicillin for this sort of thing now!!  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__

Frodo had improved slightly by morning; he was awake and alert, at least, but his breathing and cough were no better, nor was his appetite. Bell made him tea and toast for breakfast; he drank the tea, but he tore the toast into bits with anxious fingers, and ate only the smaller pieces.   
  
The physician came just after breakfast. He looked in Frodo's eyes, and down Frodo's throat; he knocked on his back and listened to him breathe, he knocked on his chest and listened to him breathe again; he examined the thick clots of phlegm that Frodo coughed up at his request.   
  
It was considered impolite to discuss a diagnosis in front of the patient, so the physician took Bell by the arm and steered her out of the room, as Frodo followed them with his eyes.   
  
"The lad has pneumonia, and he's probably had it for a while without knowing it."  
  
Bell had expected this diagnosis, although she had hoped she was wrong. Her stomach turned when she heard the word, for she knew how little could be done. "Yesterday, he said he'd been sick for four days already."  
  
"Aye, and I suspect he wasn't telling Mr. Bilbo how sick he was. It's a good thing Mr. Bilbo didn't take the boy off tramping with him…being out in the cold and wet with his lungs like this would have been the death of him."  
  
"He's looking very poorly," Bell said.  
  
The physician nodded. "If he's only been sick for four days, or five now, he's declined faster than he ought. But he's young, and in good health otherwise." He patted Bell on the shoulder. "He'll pull through. I'll bring some ointment over this afternoon…you should rub it on his back and chest three times a day to help him breathe, more if he needs it. Have him sit over boiling water with a towel on his head…that'll help clear the phlegm out of his chest. Don't give him anything to stop the cough. He needs to bring up that nasty business in his lungs. Do you still have the cups I gave you when May had scarlet fever last year?"  
  
"Yes, they're at home."  
  
"If his fever goes up this afternoon, do a cupping on him, just about half a dozen to start. That should bring it down. You can sponge him off with cool water if his fever goes high, but make sure the room is warm before you do it, so he won't catch a chill. Keep enough liquids in him so the fever doesn't dry him out, and give him light things to eat…broth, apple sauce, toast." The physician smiled reassuringly. "There's not much you can't handle, Mrs. Gamgee. I know he's in good hands."  
  
Bell thanked the physician and walked him to the door. "I'll come back this afternoon with that ointment, and I'll stop by tomorrow morning to check on the boy. He might be feeling a bit better by then."  
  
Bell returned to Frodo's room. He looked at her anxiously, his blue eyes wide and fever-bright in his pale face.   
  
"What does he say it is?" Frodo asked.  
  
"It's pneumonia, Frodo."  
  
Frodo considered this for a moment. "Am I going to be all right?"  
  
Bell smiled. "Of course you are! You just need to stay in bed and rest for a while."  
  
"When will I feel better?" he asked, then added, "I feel much better than I did last night."  
  
"Most folk who are sick like you are feel a bit better in the mornings," Bell said, and reached behind Frodo to straighten his pillows. "Something about the morning air, I suppose. But you've got a little ways to go. We'll have to bring that fever down, and clear your lungs up." Bell patted Frodo on the arm and smiled at him. "Don't worry, Frodo. We'll take good care of you."  
  
Frodo smiled back at her faintly. "I'm almost glad Bilbo isn't here," he said. "I'm sure he would think it was something he had done, or didn't do, or that the air on this side of the river isn't good for me or some nonsense."  
  
Bell had to smile at the image that came to her mind of Bilbo as a nervous father. She had to admit, it was admirable for the old bachelor to take on such a responsibility, after so many years of looking only after himself, although Bell suspected he still didn't know quite what he had gotten himself into.   
  
"Now that you mention Mr. Bilbo, Frodo, I was thinking of asking the Gaffer to run up and fetch him. I think he'd want to be with you…I think t'would be good for you too."  
  
Frodo shook his head. "Up to the North Farthing? I wouldn't send the poor Gaffer all the way up there on my account. Bilbo will be home by Sunday, unless he's delayed somehow…that's just five days from now. I'll probably be hale and hearty by then."  
  
"All right, Frodo. But do let me know if you change your mind. 'Tis no trouble."  
  
"I will."  
  
"Why don't you try to get some sleep now? You were up half the night with that cough."  
  
"And you were, too," Frodo said with a smile.  
  
"But I'm not the patient. You need your rest more than I do."  
  
"All right, Mrs. Gamgee."  
  
Bell drew the curtains halfway so the light would not disturb Frodo, and stoked the fire. Before she left, she laid her hand on the boy's forehead. He was still far warmer than he should be, and she hoped the fever would come down soon. There was nothing worse than fever to wear out a body.   
  
Bell ran a comforting hand through the boy's dark hair, and a smile crossed his face.   
  
"Thank you, Mrs. Gamgee," he said sleepily.  
  
"You're welcome, lad," she whispered, and then left him to his rest.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Hamfast came in the early evening to bring a load of firewood, and found Bell at the kitchen table, drinking a hurried cup of tea. Her face was drawn with fatigue.  
  
"You'd best be taking that pony up to Greenfields tomorrow," she said, as soon as Hamfast came through the door.  
  
"What's happened? When you stopped by for the cups this afternoon, you said the boy was sleeping."  
  
"Aye, and he was. But he woke up in a frightful state. Fever gone so high he was half out of his wits. Asked me where Mr. Bilbo was, at least three times."  
  
"Shall I fetch the physician?"  
  
"I don't see what he can do that I can't. He'll be back tomorrow morning, at any rate."  
  
Hamfast ran his hand through his hair in worry. "Should I start for the North Farthing now, do you think?"  
  
Bell shook her head. "You won't get far in the middle of the night, with no moon, and those clouds over the stars. But tomorrow, Ham, at first light."  
  
"I only hope I can find Mr. Bilbo, and that he hasn't wandered off somewhere else."  
  
Hamfast and Bell went to Frodo's room. Only fire lit the room, for the fever had made Frodo's eyes ache. Frodo lay against his pillows, a compress over his eyes and forehead, breathing heavily through his mouth. His arms lay limply over his lap.   
  
"Gracious, Bell, he sounds like he's under water!" Ham whispered.  
  
"It's his lungs…his lungs are full of liquid."   
  
Bell leaned over Frodo and lifted the compress. She smoothed the wet curls back from his forehead. His eyes opened and he stared up at her.  
  
"How are you feeling, Frodo dear?"  
  
He did not answer, but his eyes roved about the room, landing on Hamfast. "Who is this?" he asked, and then lifted his head and stared at Hamfast. "Who are you?"  
  
Hamfast looked confounded, and Bell answered soothingly, "That's the Gaffer, you know him, dear. He's your Mr. Bilbo's servant. Little Samwise's father."  
  
"Where is Bilbo?" Frodo asked anxiously, and Bell's eyes met her husband's. Hamfast shook his head in dismay.  
  
Bell sat on the edge of the bed and took Frodo's hand. "Bilbo's gone away dear, remember? The Gaffer will bring him home soon. You'll be all right."  
  
"But it's so dark…" Frodo said and then a harsh round of coughing stopped his words. Bell raised the boy and held a cloth to his mouth while rubbing his back.   
  
"Spit it out, Frodo," she said softly, and Frodo obediently coughed a wad of mucus into Bell's hand.   
  
Hamfast looked in the cloth for a moment before Bell folded it. "That's pus in his lungs," he said. "At least he's clearing it out."  
  
"Aye," said Bell. "But there's always more, and the cough is only draining him, and not letting him sleep."   
  
The coughing had exhausted Frodo. Dazed, he laid his head against Bell's shoulder and closed his eyes, fighting to regain his breath.  
  
"Bilbo?" he said, and Bell shushed him gently.  
  
"I'll set out at first light," Hamfast said.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
At six in the morning, Bell heard the front door open, and footsteps come down the hall. She recognized her husband's step, and went to the door of Frodo's bedroom to meet him.   
  
A steady, freezing drizzle was falling, and Hamfast was dressed for it, wearing his oiled raincoat over layers of woolens. Bell took him by the arm and led him away from Frodo's room so they wouldn't disturb the boy.  
  
"Is he any better?"  
  
"No, but he's no worse. He slept a little, I think, but I couldn't tell if he slept or if t'was his mind wandering. The fever's just as bad."  
  
"This is a fine thing to have happen to the poor lad, when he just moved here. Mr. Bilbo was so happy about it, too. T'was all he talked about."  
  
"Let's hope he's just at the worst part of it, and he'll turn the corner soon. He's young enough to fight this yet, although I don't know how much more of that fever he can take."  
  
Hamfast sighed. "I don't know what Mr. Bilbo will do if…"  
  
"Let's not think of that yet."  
  
"Aye," he said, and buttoned his coat. "I'll be riding straight through today, so I should get to the North Farthing tomorrow afternoon. With luck, I'll find Mr. Bilbo straight away, and we'll be back Friday afternoon, or evening at the latest. I've asked Hamson to come and check on you, make sure you have everything you need."  
  
"What about Sam and the girls?"   
  
"Hamson and Daisy should be able to tend to things for a few days. Sam is right upset about Mr. Frodo. He was begging me last night to bring him up here."  
  
"Thank goodness you didn't. I don't know what Sam would do if he saw Frodo in such a state. He's awful fond of the lad."  
  
"Aye, almost too fond, I think." He pulled his collar up. "I'll see you Friday, then. Take care of that boy."  
  
Bell put her arms around Hamfast in a quick embrace. "Be careful, Ham," she said. "And be quick."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The physician arrived several hours later and frowned when he saw Frodo's condition. Frodo was awake now, but lethargic, and shivering from fever in spite of the blankets draped over his shoulders and lap. He unfolded the boy's blankets and listened to his chest.  
  
"It's worse than yesterday," he said. "He's not coughing as much as he was, is he?"  
  
"No, but I was hoping that meant he'd improved some."  
  
The physician stood up briskly. "No, it means his body is getting to weak to fight. We will have to try to clear his lungs. Have you done this before?"  
  
"No," Bell answered, not sure what he meant.   
  
"We must force him to clear his lungs. Otherwise, he'll drown in them. Let me show you."  
  
The physician unwound Frodo's blankets. Frodo shivered at being exposed, and his eyes looked up beseechingly to Bell. "What is he doing? What does he want?"  
  
"It's all right, dear. He's trying to help you."  
  
The physician turned Frodo onto his stomach, laying his head near the edge of the bed. Frodo was now wide awake, and his brows were drawn together in anxiety.  
  
"Mrs. Gamgee!" Frodo cried, and Bell's heart was filled with pity. She knelt down by the bed and placed her palm against his cheek. "Don't worry, Frodo. You'll feel better after this," she assured him, though she was not sure of it herself.  
  
"Mrs. Gamgee," the physician said, and Bell looked up at him. "When you do this yourself, you should hold your hands like this." He held his hands up, the palms flat. "And then strike him hard and quick, right between the shoulder blades, like this."  
  
Before Bell could say anything, the physician began to pound on Frodo's back with a fast, rhythmic stroke. Frodo's eyes flew open even wider and then he squeezed them shut in pain. His breath escaped him in wounded gasps. He clenched his teeth and clutched at the bedsheet beneath him.   
  
"Stop, stop!" Bell cried. The physician stopped, and for a moment the only sound in the room was Frodo's harsh panting. Bell looked at Frodo. Sweat and tears were running down his face.   
  
"Mrs. Gamgee, please…that hurts…don't let him…"  
  
Bell looked up at the physician. "Is this really necessary?" she asked. "You can see how it pains him."  
  
"It's the best way to clear fluid from the lungs, when the patient cannot do it for himself. I know it's unpleasant for the lad, but he must endure it."  
  
Bell looked back to Frodo. His eyes were open, and filled with tears. "Mrs. Gamgee…" he sobbed.  
  
"I'm sorry, Frodo-dear. I know it hurts. But t'will only hurt for a little while, and then you'll be able to breathe a bit easier. T'will be all right, dear. I'll hold your hand."  
  
Frodo looked at her miserably, then closed his eyes and nodded. Bell eased Frodo's hand from the bedsheet and laced her stout fingers through his slender ones. She placed her other hand on his forehead.   
  
"Are you ready, Frodo?" she asked quietly, and the boy nodded without opening his eyes.  
  
Bell tightened her grip on Frodo's hand. She looked up at the physician and nodded, and then looked away.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Frodo was so spent following this treatment that he fell into an exhausted sleep. The physician's efforts had yielded a moderate amount of dark phlegm, which in Bell's opinion, was hardly worth the suffering the boy had had to endure.   
  
"You will need to do that for him every two hours," the physician said as she walked him to the door.  
  
"Every two hours! He cannot bear that! You've seen him!"  
  
"Mrs. Gamgee, the only chance now is to keep his lungs as clear as we can, and hope that the fever will break. You must make sure he drinks…tea, if he can hold it, hot water and honey if he can't. Keep using the ointment on him, too, for it will keep his chest and back warm, and help him breathe a little. I'll come back this afternoon and check on him again."  
  
Bell was too tired and distressed to thank the physician. She merely closed the door upon his back as soon as his feet had stepped onto the porch.   
  
Bell walked back to Frodo's room and stood in the doorway. The boy was still asleep, and for this at least, Bell was grateful. She dreaded having to wake him for another painful treatment.   
  
She went to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Her hands were shaking, whether from fatigue or fear she could not tell. She had nursed her six children through a vast array of illnesses, everything from measles to toothaches, but never once had any of them been as sick as this lad. Never once had she feared for any of their lives.   
  
She thought of her husband, out on the road, and of Bilbo, so far away from home, oblivious to his young ward's peril. It was a dreadful, dreadful situation: the worst she had ever known.   
  
Bell sat at the kitchen table while the water boiled. Suddenly, she recalled her strange dream from two nights before, and it filled her with foreboding. Bell's mother had believed in the prophetic nature of dreams, and had been well respected and sought after by the neighbors for her skill at interpreting their nighttime visions. Bell had never thought that she had inherited her mother's gift, and indeed, she had always suspected that her mother's "gift" had been nothing more than an observant eye and a perceptive mind. But now she thought of her dream, of Frodo's slight figure against a wall of flame in a place of terrible menace, and she wondered if she had not received a vision, a foretelling of his imminent death. She remembered the puzzling ending of the dream, how she had tried to call to Frodo, but had called for Sam instead, and wondered why her son should have been in the dream. Perhaps because he was so attached to Frodo, and she knew how greatly he would be saddened by Frodo's death.   
  
Bell tried to shake such grim thoughts from her mind. She rose and took the kettle from the hob.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It was almost midnight. Bell walked down the dark hall from Bag End's kitchen, with her only light the faint glow of candles in Frodo's room. She walked slowly, holding a wide basin of cool water in her arms.   
  
She set the basin down on the bedside table. Frodo's eyes opened and he watched her as she wrung a cloth out in the basin. The cool sound of falling water filled the room.   
  
She leaned over and brushed the boy's curls back and wiped the cloth over his face. He closed his eyes gratefully.   
  
Four times this day she had beaten on Frodo's back, as the physician had taught her. Each time, he had produced a little phlegm, but the last time, he had vomited the little bit of tea and broth he had managed to swallow for dinner, and Bell had resolved that Frodo had borne enough for one day.   
  
She gently rolled up Frodo's sleeves and washed the insides of his arms, his wrists and his palms, the slender white fingers that had so struck her the other day.  
  
The physician had returned in the afternoon, and had been disappointed in the boy's state. He had suggested that if Frodo did not begin to show signs of improvement, they should attempt to drain his lungs by puncturing them with a needle. Bell had been appalled. She could not stomach the idea of anyone sticking pins into this poor boy, no doubt causing him to die of a festering wound before the pneumonia could take him. Upon her questioning, the physician had finally admitted that this remedy had worked only once, in his knowledge. Bell had decided that the physician did not need to make any more calls at Bag End.   
  
Bell unbuttoned Frodo's nightshirt and washed his throat and chest. He opened his eyes halfway and Bell looked into them. He was still desperately feverish, but for the moment, he seemed lucid.   
  
"Mrs. Gamgee," he said softly.  
  
"Yes, dear?"  
  
"When is Bilbo coming?"  
  
"As soon as he can, Frodo. Friday, the Gaffer said."  
  
"And what day is today?"  
  
"It is early Thursday morning."  
  
Frodo blinked wearily, and his mind seemed to drift. Bell wished that she could hold him to the present, could keep him from slipping into delirium, at least for a little while.   
  
"Frodo," she said, "How long have you known Bilbo?"  
  
Frodo looked at her and smiled weakly. "All my life. I remember him…always. Even before my parents died."  
  
"You must care for him a great deal."  
  
"Mmm…I do. When my parents died, he came to see me, and stayed with me for a long time. I don't think I would have…I wouldn't have gotten out of bed again, if he hadn't come."  
  
"Did he tell you then, that he wanted to adopt you?"  
  
Frodo smiled again. "Yes…I thought he was joking. Or trying to cheer me up. But now…here I am."  
  
Bell sat Frodo up and lifted his nightshirt so that she could wash his back. Even in the candlelight, she could see the bruises from the day's treatment, and she touched him very gently.  
  
Frodo continued to speak in his soft, sleepy voice. "Bilbo said…'Now we can celebrate our birthdays together, my lad.' He was so excited, even more than I was, I think."  
  
"But you were happy to come?"  
  
"Oh, of course."  
  
"And do you miss Brandy Hall? And all your relations?"  
  
"I miss my Aunt Esmeralda sometimes. Her son, Meriadoc…Merry. He was sad when I left. But I've been very happy to be here. Bilbo is…" He trailed off for a moment, then said simply, "I love him dearly."  
  
Bell settled Frodo back against the pillows and buttoned his nightshirt. She drew the blankets up around him.   
  
"It will be hard on him," Frodo said quietly. "If he comes home, and I am…gone. When I have only just gotten here, after all."  
  
Bell stroked his cheek. "Don't worry, Frodo. Bilbo will come home tomorrow. You will not be gone. This is your home. You will get better. You will be master of Bag End, and you'll marry and you'll fill all these rooms with children. And you'll live here a long, long time, and be very happy."  
  
Frodo closed his eyes. "That would be nice," he said, and fell asleep.  
  
Bell held Frodo's hand for a little while, until she was certain he was truly asleep. Then she picked up the basin and brought it to the kitchen. She sat down at the kitchen table, and gazed into the fire. Bell was not one to question the workings of fate, but it seemed wrong, terribly wrong, that this child, this orphaned boy, should have to leave the world when he was so close to finding a place in it.   
  
Bell put her head in her hands and wept.


	5. Memory and Nightmare

**Chapter 5: Memory and Nightmare**  
  
  
Bell had fallen asleep in the wing chair beside Frodo's bed. The light of dawn awoke her.   
  
Frodo's eyes were open, but unfocused. The shadows beneath his eyes seemed almost black in the dim light. His breath came in brief, shallow gasps, as though a weight lay upon his chest.   
  
Bell sat beside him and rubbed his chest. "Is it worse, Frodo?"  
  
Frodo shook his head. "The same," he said. "It hurts."  
  
"I think we'll try the physician's ointment again, Frodo. That helped before, do you remember?"  
  
He closed his eyes and nodded.   
  
"I'm going to make you a bit of breakfast. Do you think you can eat a little?"  
  
A grimace passed over Frodo's face, but he said, "I'll try."  
  
Bell prepared a thin, milky porridge for Frodo. He ate half of it, and then turned his face away.   
  
"A little more, Frodo, please," Bell implored him.   
  
"No. I'll be sick," he said, and Bell decided it would be better to let him hold on to the little bit he had been able to eat, than to let him lose all of it.   
  
She brought him a small cup of hot milk with a little of Bilbo's rich brandy stirred into it: the milk to warm and nourish him, and the brandy to relieve his pain and help him sleep. When Frodo had eased a bit, Bell stirred the fire to keep the room warm and unbuttoned Frodo's nightshirt to apply the physician's ointment.  
  
The ointment was thick and oily, and smelled of eucalyptus and peppermint. It was warm on Bell's hands, and she knew that it must give Frodo a little comfort. Already, his breathing had become a bit slower and deeper, although it was not much of an improvement.   
  
"There now, isn't that better?" Bell asked soothingly.  
  
"Mmmm," Frodo said, and fell asleep.  
  
Gently, she sat Frodo up and removed his nightshirt, one careful arm at a time. She turned him over onto his stomach. Before she began to massage the ointment onto his back, she looked with sorrow at the pattern of bruises on his back from yesterday's treatment. In her mind, Bell knew she had been trying to help Frodo, but in her heart, she grieved to have inflicted such blows upon him.   
  
As she massaged Frodo's back, she noticed something she had seen before and wondered at: a fine crisscross of long-healed, white scars across his back. She could count six of them, two seemingly heavier than the rest. She recognized them as switch-marks, and she wondered who at Brandy Hall would have given the boy such a beating, and for what offense.   
  
Bell heard a heavy step come down the smial's long hall and she looked up just as her eldest son appeared in the doorway.   
  
"Hamson," she said, and smiled. It was good to see him.  
  
"Morning, Mum," he said and stepped into the room. "Dad wanted me to check on you and Mr. Frodo. He walked to the bed as quietly as his husky frame would allow. "How is the lad? Dad said he was faring quite poorly."  
  
"Aye, that he is," Bell said quietly. "But at least he's sleeping now."  
  
Hamson looked down at Frodo. "Goodness, Mum, there's barely anything left to him!"   
  
"I can't get much food in him, and the fever burns away what I do."  
  
"What happened to his back? He looks like he's been beaten on."  
  
Bell sighed. "'Twas the physician and my own self, Hamson. We were trying to clear his lungs." She looked down at Frodo's back, and traced her finger over the old scars. "But look at these, Hamson. Someone gave the boy a sound thrashing once. Hard enough to mark him for life."  
  
Hamson looked at them thoughtfully, and then said, "I overheard Dad and Mr. Bilbo talking once. Mr. Bilbo was in a right state, saying that Farmer Maggot had beaten his cousin bloody for stealing mushrooms. That's probably where those marks are from."  
  
Bell looked up in surprise. "Farmer Maggot, from the Marish? He beat him hard enough to leave marks like these?"  
  
"Aye," Hamson nodded. "Mr. Bilbo said that Mr. Frodo had gone over there with two good-for-nothing cousins, and they just took off and left him there, and never once looked back. I heard old Maggot striped him right down to his ankles."  
  
"And what did those Brandybucks do when he turned up home like that? I hope they gave that Maggot a piece of their mind!"  
  
"To hear Mr. Bilbo tell it, the boy never said a word. He went home and tended to himself, if you can you believe that. Mr. Bilbo told Dad that if it'd been one of them Brandybuck boys, they'da been screamin' bloody murder. If the boy's aunt hadn't found blood on his shirt, no one would ever have known. Seems the boy was almost raising himself over there in Buckland. I hear they never paid much mind to him, after his parents drownded."  
  
Bell stroked Frodo's back and made a tutting sound with her tongue. "I can only imagine what Mr. Bilbo must have done when he found out!"  
  
Hamson shook his head. "By the time Mr. Bilbo found out, months had gone by, and the boy begged him to leave it be. 'Tis a good thing he did, for you know how Mr. Bilbo feels about the lad. If Mr. Frodo hadn't stopped him, Mr. Bilbo would have likely knocked Maggot's head clean off his neck!"  
  
"And it would've served him right!" Bell exclaimed. The lad couldn't have deserved such a beating over a few mushrooms!"   
  
"Oh, Dad says Maggot's got quite a temper…and a pack of savage dogs, to boot. At least the lad's lucky old Maggot's dogs didn't tear a strip off of him. Ah, well…it couldn't have hurt for a boy his age to learn a thing or two."  
  
Bell looked at Frodo's narrow shoulders and porcelain hands, and imagined fat old Farmer Maggot flogging the boy's slight frame. Moved by motherly outrage, she would have liked to march off to Maggot's with a firm willow switch and teach him a thing or two about tolerance, and kindness, and mercy.   
  
She finished her ministrations and re-dressed Frodo in his nightshirt. She wound a blanket around his shoulders and settled him against his pillows. He seemed deeply asleep, and Bell was grateful for this brief rest.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
_Frodo was asleep and yet not. His eyes were closed and he did not respond to the world around him, but his ears heard, even as his thought drifted. If Bell Gamgee had known that Frodo could hear her, she would have spoken even more softly than she did, but her words slipped through the thin veil of his delirium. And though his failing body remained in his bed at Bag End on a bleak late winter's day, his mind took her words and wandered with them, and he found himself fourteen years old, on a blazing day in August.   
  
It had barely rained all summer, and the dirt of Farmer Maggot's farmyard was so dry that Frodo could make out the dust his cousins' feet raised as they tore across the yard, to freedom and safety at the end of the path. _They left me! _he thought frantically, even as heard Farmer Maggot shouting behind him.   
  
"Wait!" he called out, but Frodo was younger and smaller than they were, and could not run as fast. The gate was yet so far away that Frodo knew he was caught. He tried to run faster, but he heard Farmer Maggot's heavy footsteps catching him up, and when he threw a desperate glance over his shoulder he stumbled and fell forward into the dust with a painful thump. A shadow came over him and his heart sank.  
  
"Young Mr. Baggins…been left in the lurch, have you?"   
  
Frodo thought that if Farmer Maggot busied himself with talking, he might yet have a chance to escape. But Farmer Maggot was swift with his hands as well as his tongue, and before Frodo could regain his feet, Maggot had seized the back of Frodo's shirt in one fist, and given him such a shake that his teeth knocked together.   
  
"I would have liked to have gotten th'other two…this ain't their first time on my land. But if I can only get one, then one I'll take." He pushed Frodo down into the dirt and held him in place. "And I'll give the one a lesson meant for three."  
  
Before Frodo could wonder what Farmer Maggot meant by _that _, he heard the high whicker of the switch, and he flung his arms behind him to deflect the blow. But in his prone position Frodo could do little to protect himself, and the switch came down squarely on the small of his back, with a pain so razor-sharp and shocking that he could not even cry out.   
  
Frodo had been struck before, but never by someone outside of his family, and never with such enthusiasm. The shock of this, combined with his horror at having been caught, rendered him immobile beneath Farmer Maggot's switch. He made no attempt to escape; he only squeezed his eyes shut and counted every whistle of the switch and every sharp crack of it against his back and legs. He had counted to thirteen when it finally stopped.   
  
"That's four stripes for each of you, and one for good measure," Farmer Maggot said and pulled him to his feet. Frodo shook his head to clear it and heard dirt and small stones pattering out of his hair onto the ground. He looked about himself and realized that Farmer Maggot was _not _dragging him down the path to his fence, but _away _from the fence, to the back of his brick farmhouse, and he suddenly remembered what his cousins had told him about the farmer's dogs.  
  
_He goes into the fields and catches rabbits for them, _they had said. _Then he throws them to those dogs—alive.  
  
Why does he do that? _Frodo had asked, his eyes wide with horror.  
  
_For the killer instinct. _said Merimas. _For blood-lust. _said Merimac. _He wants them to be good at catching small things… _said Merimas, _…and tearing them to pieces. _finished Merimac.  
  
It was only then that Frodo began to struggle.  
  
"Please!" he said, the first sound he had uttered since he had been caught. "I'm sorry! I won't do it again!" He tried to wriggle out of Maggot's grip, but the hold on him was so tight, and Maggot was marching with such long strides that Frodo's feet barely touched the ground.  
  
"Oh no," Farmer Maggot laughed. "You certainly _won't _do it again!"  
  
Farmer Maggot half-dragged, half-carried Frodo to a fenced paddock, where his three fierce dogs paced. He threw Frodo up against the fence and the dogs came, barking and spraying foam from their jaws. Frodo shrank back and tried to wrench himself away, but the tough old farmer was too strong, and Frodo was dizzy and sick from the beating and the heat, and from fear and shame. He felt the dogs' hot breath on his face and he shut his eyes and tried to pull his head away from them.  
  
"Do you see this boy?" Farmer Maggot said to his dogs. "Baggins is his name, and a little thief is what he is. If he comes 'round here again, make short work of him, lads!"  
  
He released his hold and Frodo's knees buckled. He collapsed onto the ground and then to his horror heard the sound of Maggot drawing back the latch on the dogs' fence.   
  
_… good at catching small things…tearing them to pieces, _Frodo heard, and then, in a panic, thought, _He's going to set those dogs on me!   
  
_"Give 'im a taste of what to expect!" Maggot said and roared with laughter as the dogs tore out of their pen.   
  
Frodo had not known he could run so fast. It seemed that his feet were actually flying several inches above the ground, and yet he could still feel the dogs' breath against the backs of his legs. He knew that if he turned around to look he would be torn to bits, so he ran blindly, gasping for air until his lungs burned.   
  
After a while he realized that he no longer heard the dogs behind him, and he dared to stop and turn around. Frodo was amazed to see that he had already run far beyond Farmer Maggot's fence. Farmer Maggot stood at the fence with his three awful dogs, their tongues lolling and their tails wagging as if they had had good sport. He stooped and scratched their flat heads.   
  
"Let that be a lesson to you, boy!" he called out, and that was enough to make Frodo turn back and begin to run again, less blindly, but just as swiftly, until the farm was far in the dust behind him.   
  
Frodo began the long walk home, his breath slowly returning to normal. It was not long past noon, and the sun still rode high and white in the sky. The road back to the Hall wound through brush and open, un-shaded fields and Frodo looked with longing at the tree line in the distance. How dark it would be beneath those trees, how cool! If he could only crawl into that cool darkness and sleep, just for a little while. Yet he was afraid that if he did so he might sleep the day away and would not return to the Hall until after dark. If supper were already being served, he would never be able to slip into his room and avoid explaining what had happened―and then his grandfather or one of his aunts would most likely take another switch to him.   
  
The sun was so hot, that even with his head down, Frodo could feel its exact position above him, and its potency beat against the back of his neck. His mouth felt as dry as the dust beneath his feet. He had made it half the way home, when he had to sit down in the brush and rest. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against his knees, listening to the high-summer whir of hidden insects in the brush. The sound buzzed in his head until he became dizzy. Without warning, he leaned over and vomited between his feet.   
  
Frodo stared at what he had thrown up for a moment, feeling desperately grateful that his cousins were not there to witness this humiliation. Then he pushed himself a bit away from it and wiped his mouth on a handful of leaves. Suddenly overcome with fatigue, and sickness and shame, he put his hands over his eyes and cried.   
  
A small yew tree stood in the field at a little distance from where Frodo sat, and a thin circle of shade lay beneath it. Frodo looked up at the sky. _It's so early, _he thought. _Even if I sleep for two hours, I'll still be home by teatime. _He wiped his sleeve over his eyes and stood up shakily, then threaded through the high brush until he reached the tree. He lay down gratefully in its shade, pillowing his forehead on his arms and letting the breeze pass over his stinging back. He was asleep within minutes.  
  
Someone was stroking his back, a cool hand, a light touch.   
  
_What has happened to you, my son?   
  
Mum? Mumma?   
  
Yes, Frodo.   
  
_Frodo rolled over onto his side. His mother, dead these two years, sat beside him on the dry summer grass. Frodo felt tears come to his eyes.  
  
_Oh, Mumma…I was where I shouldn't have been. And I got myself in awful trouble.   
  
_She touched the side of his face. Frodo closed his eyes and sighed. Since his parents had died, hardly anyone touched him this way anymore.  
  
_You must be more careful, Frodo. I cannot protect you.   
  
Don't worry, Mumma, I won't ever go back there. I won't get in any trouble, ever again, I promise.   
  
_His mother smiled at him sadly. _I cannot protect you, _she said again.  
  
_What do you mean, Mumma?   
  
_The sudden rustle of some small animal through the high grass jolted him awake. He looked up groggily, the dream-touch of his mother's hand still lingering on his face. The light was now golden and the shadows were long. It was late afternoon; he had slept for hours.  
  
Startled by the lateness of the hour, Frodo leapt up, forgetting his injuries. Immediately, he felt the stiffness that had set into his back and legs and the painful pulling-away of his shirt from the bleeding welts. Frodo touched his back gingerly and felt wetness there; craning his head over one shoulder, he saw bright red stripes on the back of his shirt.   
  
"Oh no," he whispered in dismay, but there was nothing he could do other than return home, and offer whatever explanation he could.   
  
As it happened, he needed to offer no explanations at all. He let himself in through the kitchen door just as dinner was being served, and he met a terrific bustle. He stood for a moment in the doorway, unnoticed, wondering how he would cross to his room without anyone seeing his back, when one of the housemaids caught sight of him. She paused, a gravy boat held between her two hands, and looked at him with exasperation.   
  
"You'd best get yourself cleaned up and take your place!" she scolded. "Supper's almost on the table and you look like you've been rolling around in a haybarn all day! Shoo!"  
  
Frodo shooed. He went to his room and quietly shut the door behind him. No one else in the kitchen had paid him any mind, or noticed his bloodstained back. As Frodo changed his shirt and washed his face, he realized that he had missed teatime, and yet _he _, somehow, had apparently not _been _missed at all. Frodo was not surprised, for tea was a casual meal, without the sit-down formality of dinner, and he often went unnoticed in the great crowd at Brandy Hall. He rolled the bloody shirt up into a little ball and tucked it underneath his bed, then went to take his place at the dinner table.   
  
Dinner was a miserable affair for Frodo. In spite of his long nap beneath the yew tree, he was tired and aching, and his head had begun to pound in time with the passing of plates and the clatter of spoons. Each time he shifted, he felt his new, clean shirt sticking to his back, and he hoped desperately that he would not bleed through this one, as well. He sat up as straight and stiffly as he could and pushed the food around on his plate. Would this interminable meal never end?  
  
Half in a daze, Frodo suddenly heard "And what did _you _do today, Cousin Frodo?" from across the table. He looked up and saw his cousins Merimas and Merimac there, gazing at him with great, feigned interest, barely suppressed mirth on their faces. They were both twenty years old, and as they were both the eldest sons of their respective families, they had grown up brash and presumptuous. They were a great, noisy presence in the Hall and Frodo both admired and feared them. He had asked them for so long to take him along with them on one of their adventures. Frodo knew they viewed him as a childish nuisance, yet today, for the first time, they had let him tag along. He was certain that they must know what had happened to him, but that if he cried or acted like a baby, they would not only mock him mercilessly, but would never allow him to go anywhere with them, ever again. He would show them that he was made of stronger stuff.   
  
He smiled at them as cheerfully as he could and said, "I went down to the river, and walked by the edge of the Forest."  
  
"Oh, is that all? Well that _is _a _switch _, isn't it?" Merimas said. Merimac put his hand over his mouth and spluttered with laughter, although it wasn't a terribly funny joke. Frodo realized with dismay that they were not at all impressed by his endurance and nerve and he put his head down and did not talk to them for the rest of the meal.   
  
At last, dinner ended. Frodo pushed himself away from the table and went down the hall to his small room, grateful for its isolation from the rest of the household. _I'll wash my shirt out, _he thought, knowing he could not leave it until morning. _And then I'll just go to bed. They won't miss me at supper.   
  
_"Frodo, what is that on your shirt?"   
  
Frodo stopped and bit his lip. He turned around and saw his Aunt Esmeralda in the kitchen doorway. It was now twilight, and the hall in which Frodo stood was shadowy and dim, but enough light came from the kitchen to illuminate Frodo's small form. His aunt had caught an unlucky glimpse of him before he had reached the safety of his room. "I don't know," he said miserably. "Is there something?"  
  
"Yes," she said. "Come here."  
  
He went to her reluctantly and allowed himself to be turned around.   
  
"Why this looks like…" She tugged at the shirt and Frodo could not suppress a small hiss as the fabric pulled away from the fresh wounds. "Frodo! You're bleeding! What happened?" She turned him around to look at her, but he cast down his eyes and shook his head, too ashamed to tell her the truth.  
  
Aunt Esmeralda stood up briskly and took him by the hand. Frodo held back for a moment, certain that she was going to march him straight to his grandfather, but she looked down at him and said, "Frodo, I want to see your back. Now be a good lad and come on."  
  
She took him back to his own room and unbuttoned his shirt with maternal efficiency. Frodo winced when she took his braces down, but held still as she turned him around and slid his shirt from his shoulders.   
  
Frodo heard his aunt take in a sharp, dismayed breath. "Frodo," she whispered. "Who did this?"  
  
Frodo swallowed hard and put his head down. He knew that he could not keep silent, or act as if he had merely had an accident. He took a deep breath and told his aunt what had happened. He told her almost everything, yet he did not tell her that he had been in the company of his cousins, and he could not bear to tell her that he had thrown up and cried by the side of the road. When he finished, he turned around and looked at her beseechingly.  
  
"I know it was wrong, and I'm sorry. Please don't tell Grandfather. I'll wash the shirts out myself."  
  
"The shirts? Where is the other one?"  
  
Frodo nodded and got down on his knees. He felt under the bed and pulled out the shirt he had stuffed under there. It was so stiff by now that it almost creaked as he unfolded it.   
  
Aunt Esmeralda took the soiled shirt from him. It was a far uglier sight than Frodo had noticed earlier, for the mix of blood and sweat had painted it with gore. He knew that he would be punished for trespassing at the Maggot's _and _for ruining his clothes.  
  
"Oh Frodo," his aunt said, and to his amazement, tears stood in her eyes. He looked at her with his mouth open. Then, to his utter astonishment, Aunt Esmeralda wrapped her arms around him, and kissed his cheek, and held him.   
  
It had been so long since anyone had embraced him that he stood woodenly in his aunt's arms, staring wide-eyed over her shoulder. The embrace brought to him a recollection of his dream beneath the yew tree, and the warm, forgotten touch of his mother's hand. Slowly, he became aware of an ache that seemed to come from his very bones, the kindling of a desperate, long-denied hunger for affection and touch. Hesitantly, as if he were made of glass, he wrapped his own arms around his aunt's back and laid his chin on her shoulder. His mouth began to tremble with tears and he put his head down and pressed his eyes against the crisp muslin of her dress.  
  
She pulled him closer and patted his back lightly, avoiding the switch-marks as best as she could. "It's all right, dear," she whispered in his ear. "It's all right."  
  
Frodo allowed himself to cry onto his aunt's shoulder, and after a little while his sobs tapered off into quiet sniffles. He turned his cheek onto Aunt Esmeralda's shoulder and sighed, and shifted a little within her embrace. He became aware that he felt hot, and a bit sick, and suddenly his aunt's arms seemed very tight around him.   
  
"Aunt Esmeralda…" he said, and tried to push himself away. She did not answer, and Frodo felt a strange alarm creep into his mind. "Aunt…" he said again, and pushed harder, but she did not release him. Her arms scraped against his back and he caught his breath from the pain. "I don't feel well…that hurts…please…"  
  
It had grown very dark by now, and he could no longer make out the features of his room. Frodo felt the arms around him slide upwards, and now hands grasped him by the back of his neck, not by his collar as Farmer Maggot had. The hands were fiery against his skin, and it seemed that claws dug into his flesh. This was not his aunt.   
  
Frodo scrabbled at the hands but they were like a white-hot fetter of iron upon his neck, and he shuddered with pain. His switch-marks suddenly seemed as insignificant as mosquito bites: this was anguish. He heard a sound behind him in the darkness, an awful sound of hungry, panting breath. He was wheeled around and he faced not dogs, but a wolf, a great black, red-eyed wolf, and it howled and snapped slavering jaws at him.   
  
"Do you see this boy?" a voice said above him, and Frodo could not see its owner, nor would he ever have wished to. "His name is _Baggins. _He is a thief. He has what is ours. Make him give it back."  
  
Frodo shook his head wildly. "I don't have anything!" he cried. He was thrown forward and he staggered to his feet. He ran blindly into pitch darkness, but the wolf bore him to the ground and turned him over. He closed his eyes and waited for it to tear out his throat, but it bayed and sat upon his chest until it seemed that his lungs would burst. "Please! I can't breathe! Please!" he gasped, although he knew he wasted his scarce breath begging such a creature for mercy. He looked up into the beast's red eyes and it seemed that he now saw but one eye above him, terrible, blazing like fire. It filled all his vision.   
  
The weight upon his chest became unbearable. _Just one breath…if I could take just one breath… _he thought desperately, but when he tried to breathe the pain was so immense that he was certain his breastbone was cracking and he felt himself choking as thick, vile liquid filled the back of his throat.   
  
_Please…!  
  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
_Author's Note: Frodo's nasty cousins, Merimas and Merimac, are not meant to be the same as shown on Tolkien's Brandybuck family tree--they were both much older than Frodo. With a hundred or so relatives around the place at any given time, there surely must have been more Brandybuck cousins than Tolkien lists, and I just couldn't resist the names Merimas and Merimac._


	6. A Bad Spell

Chapter 6: A Bad Spell 

_Gentle Readers: Chapter 5, "Memory and Nightmare," was posted just before this site went down for a day. If you missed it, please back up and read that one before this, because there are things in here that won't make sense if you haven't read Chapter 5 first. Thank you!_

_Author's Warning: This chapter contains:  
1) Medical unpleasantness  
2) Maternal intuition  
3) Foreshadowing   
  
_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Bell was in the kitchen when the sound of Frodo's voice startled her. She would never have thought he had the strength to cry out, yet she could hear his voice raised in an anguished supplication, "Please! Please!" and other words that she could not make out. Drying her hands on her skirt, she hurried to his bedroom; when she heard Frodo begin to cough, she broke into a run.   
  
The pain of coughing had made Frodo rise up from his pillows and draw his knees to his chest. Bell ran to his bed and braced herself behind Frodo's back, and wrapped her arms around him to hold him upright. He was even hotter than before, and she knew that his fever must have taken a sudden upwards turn while he slept. Frodo clasped his hands across his chest in pain, and his whole body shook with the force of his coughs. His eyes opened for a moment and wheeled from side to side, and Bell saw no reason in them.   
  
"Please stop!" he raved. "Please…I have nothing!"   
  
"Shhh, now, shhh," Bell said. "Don't try to talk, it will only make it worse."  
  
Frodo began to gag. His hands fluttered to his throat, and Bell realized he was trying to expel something, but was too weak to do it. Quickly, without thinking, Bell put two fingers down his throat and brought forth a mass of phlegm so thick it was almost solid, yellow and foul as before, but now laced with fine threads of blood.   
  
Frodo shuddered and gasped for breath. Suddenly his body stiffened and he retched horribly; before Bell had a chance to bring a cloth or basin to his mouth, Frodo vomited onto his sheets. He went limp in her arms.   
  
Even with all of her years of mothering, Bell was stunned by the violence of the spell. She could do nothing for the moment except sit with Frodo's unconscious body in her arms. As sometimes happened with fever, Frodo's temperature had plummeted from its sudden spike, and he was now shivering and sweating so profusely that his nightshirt was drenched. She felt a warm wetness beneath her and realized with dismay and pity that Frodo had been unable to control even that.   
  
Bell slid herself out from behind him and leaned him against his pillows. His head lolled backwards and his half-opened eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling. If not for his ragged breathing, he would have appeared already dead. She wiped his mouth, and brushed his wet hair from his forehead. Her hands were shaking.   
  
Bell knew that he could not stay in the wet, soiled bed. She drew back the covers and slid her arms underneath him. But, although he weighed little, he was taller than Bell, and awkward for her to lift. He was so wet that she could not get a proper hold on him, and he trembled so badly that Bell knew she could never carry him to Bilbo's room on her own. Quickly, she stripped his wet nightshirt from him and wrapped him in a clean blanket. She pushed him to the driest corner of the bed.   
  
Taking his face in her hands she said, "Frodo, I will be right back." If he heard her, he gave no sign.  
  
Bell kissed his forehead and left him.   
  
A sullen March rain had been falling all day, and the path from Bag End to Bagshot Row was muddy and slick. Bell did not notice it; she ran down the hill as quickly as she could. Her heart was in her throat at the thought that Frodo might be dead by the time she returned.  
  
She burst through the kitchen door of her own small home. Sam was sitting by himself at the kitchen table, a book and a mug of tea before him. He looked up, startled by his mother's sudden, frenzied appearance.  
  
"Where is your brother?" she cried.  
  
"What? Mum…?"  
  
"Where is your brother?" she asked again, and this time tears choked her voice.   
  
"He's in the woodshed…Mummy what happened?"  
  
Bell spun around and ran back outside and down the little path to their woodshed. She found Hamson inside, splitting logs, and she ran to him and clutched his arm.   
  
"Hamson, come with me! I need your help!"  
  
"Mr. Frodo?"  
  
"Yes, please, come!"  
  
Hamson let his axe fall to the floor and ran outside with Bell. On the way back to Bag End, Bell told Hamson what had happened in gasping breaths.   
  
When they reached Bag End, Bell wondered why the front door was wide open, though she did not have time to think about it. Nor was she able to heed the small, muddy footprints that led from the front door down the smial's long hall. But when she turned the corner to Frodo's room, she was suddenly struck motionless, and it seemed that her heart and breath stopped in her body.  
  
Sam was sitting on Frodo's bed, sitting _on _Frodo, his small legs on either side of Frodo's slight form. His arms were raised to Frodo's face, and he was patting the ashen cheeks with his small, brown hands. Tears ran from his eyes.  
  
"Wake up, Mr. Frodo! Oh, wake up, Mr. Frodo, wake up!"  
  
All the worry and fatigue and despair of these last days overwhelmed Bell. Suddenly the memory of her terrible dream came to her, clearly as if she dreamt again, and she saw Frodo silhouetted against a sea of fire, but all she felt was terror for her own son.  
  
"Sam!" she shrieked desperately. "Samwise!"  
  
Sam turned around at the sound of his mother's voice. "Mummy!" he sobbed. "Mr. Frodo…!"  
  
Bell was a tiny lady, but she crossed the room to Frodo's bedside in two steps. Barely aware of what she did, she grasped Sam under the arms and lifted him off the bed so swiftly that his feet kicked in the air. Sam wailed as she carried him to the front door and set him down firmly on the porch.  
  
"Go home, Samwise!" she said breathlessly. "You should never have come!"  
  
"But Mummy…!"  
  
Bell grabbed Sam by the arm and spun him around. With one swift motion, she swatted him on the rear so hard that he took three stumbling steps onto the path. "Go home!" she ordered.  
  
Sam looked at her, his face stricken. Then he turned and ran down the path, his feet kicking clods of mud onto the back of his trousers.  
  
Bell slammed the door and put her hands over her face for a moment. She regained control of herself and returned to Frodo's room.  
  
Hamson was a blessing, the very soul of common sense. He had lifted Frodo from his bed and set him in the wing chair before the fire, another blanket wound tightly about him so that he would not be chilled. Hamson was bent over the bed, diligently stripping the wet sheets from it. Bell went to him and touched his shoulder.  
  
"I didn't know which room was Mr. Bilbo's, Mum, so I didn't know where you wanted me to take him…Mum!" he said, startled. "You look like you're about to faint!"  
  
"I'm all right, Hamson, I'm all right. I'm just frightened, that's all." She offered him a wan smile. "Now, Mr. Bilbo's room is the first down the hall, on the right. I'll finish up here, if you go there and start a fire. We can't put Frodo in there with it so cold. And put the warmer in the bed, too."  
  
"All right, Mum," he said. "Not to worry."  
  
Bell went to Frodo and looked at his face. He seemed barely alive, and he looked so small and worn that even the chair seemed to dwarf him. She felt ashamed, somehow, as if, in her sudden, superstitious fear for Sam, she had wished ill will upon Frodo that would now claim his last bit of strength.  
  
She turned her attention to the bed and finished stripping the sheets from it, laying them in a pile on the floor.   
  
"Mrs. Gamgee?"  
  
Bell turned around, amazed to hear Frodo speak. Only moments before, he had seemed beyond even waking. She went to him and knelt down before his chair. "Frodo? How do you feel, dear?"  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"You had a bit of a bad spell, but it's over now."  
  
He looked past her, at the stripped bed and the mound of soiled linens on the floor. His face filled with confusion and shame, and with mortal fear. His mouth trembled and tears came to his feverish eyes. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and turned his eyes back to her. "I'm sorry."  
  
Bell touched his face. "No, dear…oh no," she said and put her arms around him. "You couldn't help it. It's not your fault. Poor lad. Poor lad."  
  
Frodo sobbed weakly against her shoulder. After a moment, he quieted, and Bell thought he had fainted again or fallen asleep. Then she heard him ask, in a faint voice, "Where is the black wolf?"  
  
She knew it was his illness talking, but the question chilled her nonetheless. "There's no wolves here, Frodo," she said, and held him tightly. She leaned him back against the chair. He looked at her dully for a moment, and then closed his eyes.  
  
Bell finished stripping the bed, and Hamson returned to carry Frodo to Bilbo's warmed room. When he lifted the boy, Frodo's eyes fluttered briefly.   
  
"His eye…his red eye…" Frodo said, and then fell silent. He did not speak again for the rest of the afternoon.


	7. Night

**Chapter 7: Night**  
  
  
Bell bathed Frodo as well as she could and bundled him into one of Bilbo's nightshirts, for she had run out of Frodo's own things. She and Hamson put him to bed, and Bell sat down for a moment, exhausted.   
  
"Mum," Hamson said, "Why don't you go home and change and have a bit of a sleep? I can stay here and watch Mr. Frodo."  
  
"Change?" she asked confused, and then looked down at her clothes. She had been wearing the same dress for three days, and it was covered in sickroom stains and mud from her desperate trip to Bagshot Row. "Aye," she said. "'Tis hardly fitting for me to be in a sickroom in such a dirty state. I'll put on something fresh, but I'll come back here afterwards to have a nap. I don't want to be down the hill in case…well, in case of anything."  
  
She left Hamson sitting by the fire and went home. Daisy was serving dinner, and all of her children were at table except Sam.   
  
"Where is Sam?" she asked.  
  
"He came tearin' in here a bit ago and went straight to his bed," Daisy answered. "Been there ever since. What happened up there, Mum? Did Mr. Frodo…"  
  
"No, but he's in as poor a state as he could be. Sam should never have seen him like that."  
  
Bell changed quickly into a clean dress and went to Sam. He was in his bed with the covers pulled up over his head so that only a little tuft of his brown curls showed above the blanket.  
  
"Sam," Bell said, and touched his shoulder. When he did not respond, she gently folded back the covers from his face. He was fast asleep, his eyes swollen from crying. "Samwise," she said, and shook him a little.   
  
Sam blinked and rolled over groggily. He stared at her for a moment, and his eyes widened. "Is Mr. Frodo dead?" he asked in a breathless whisper.  
  
"No, dear, he isn't."  
  
"Is he going to die?"  
  
She considered lying to the boy, but could not, not after he had seen Frodo with his own eyes. "I don't know, Sam."  
  
"He looked awful sick, Mummy. He wouldn't wake up."  
  
"I don't think Mr. Frodo could hear you."  
  
Bell saw tears begin to glimmer in Sam's eyes. "I'm sorry I went up there, Mummy. But when you came in to look for Ham, I knew something was wrong and I thought maybe…maybe I could help…maybe I could talk to him."  
  
"I know, Sam. I know you didn't mean no harm."  
  
"I'm sorry I made you mad, Mummy."  
  
"Oh, Sam," she said. "I wasn't mad, I was frightened. Mr. Frodo was so sick, and I didn't know what to do. And when I saw you with him I…I was afraid."  
  
"Why were you afraid?" Sam asked. His eyes were wide, as if astonished by this new idea that his mother could even _be _afraid.  
  
Bell grew silent for a moment, remembering the strange terror she had felt when she had seen Sam on Frodo's bed. She could not explain it to Sam. "I don't know, Sam," she answered truthfully. "I just was."  
  
"Oh," Sam said, and nodded. He looked at her sorrowfully. "I'm sorry I scared you."  
  
Bell smiled. She sat Sam up and hugged him. "It's all right, Sam. You weren't doing nothing but being kind, and having a care for Mr. Frodo, and that's nothing you should ever feel sorry for. You have a fine, big heart, Samwise. 'Twill do you well in life."   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Bell kissed her children goodnight and returned to Bag End. Hamson was sitting by the fire, just as she had left him, and Frodo, too, was as she had left him.   
  
"Has he woken at all?" she asked Hamson.  
  
"No, Mum. He hasn't said a word or moved an inch since you've been gone."  
  
Bell went to Frodo and laid her hand on his hot forehead. He did not respond to her touch. His breaths were short and labored, but quieter than before, and Bell feared that even his strength to breathe was now failing.   
  
Bell lay down in the little room she had been using as her own, but she could not sleep. The rain had turned to sleet, and its forlorn sound upon the window troubled her. She fell into a light, exhausted doze, in which she heard Sam's voice calling _Wake up, Mr. Frodo! Oh, wake up! _again and again. Muddled images played behind her eyelids, and sometimes she saw her son in Frodo's room at Bag End, while other times it seemed that she saw him under a great cliff, in a dark and stony pass. _Oh, wake up, Mr. Frodo.   
  
_At last, Bell gave up the pretense of sleep. She rose from the narrow bed and sent Hamson home to be with his brothers and sisters. She put water on for tea, and settled down for the night's watch.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Bell was able to rouse Frodo only twice that evening. She woke him to make him drink some hot water with honey, for he had lost everything he had eaten or drunk that day, and Bell knew he was parched. He opened his eyes again when she bathed his face, and he asked her if he would die that night. Bell reassured him as well as she could, in words that she did not believe herself.  
  
The hour grew very late. In the stillness, Bell felt a change come over the smial. During the four days that she had tended to Frodo, a pall of illness had slowly settled over Bag End, that dark mood brought on by dimly lit rooms, anxious silences, and lingering odors of tea and eucalyptus and sickness. But now it seemed that a new shadow lay upon the smial, not of sickness, but of Death, silent and patient.  
  
Bell gathered Frodo into her arms and sat with him folded against her. She rocked him gently and listened to the sleet at the window, to the fire in the grate, to the rattle of his breath, now grown fainter. She would cling to hope yet, because it was her nature, but in her heart, she knew the truth. She was sitting a deathwatch.   
  
She thought of her husband, and of Bilbo, somewhere on the road. They would most likely not get here in time. When Bilbo adopted Frodo, some had joked about it, saying the only reason he had done it was because he had no heir of his own, and he didn't want the Sackville-Bagginses to get his money. But Bell believed that Bilbo loved Frodo; this orphaned cousin was the closest thing to a son that the old hobbit had. How would he ever bear losing the boy?  
  
The fire burned low and the candles guttered out. Bell would have liked to relight them, but she did not want to let go of Frodo. If he was to die, he should at least die in someone's arms, whether he was aware of it or not.   
  
Slowly, Bell drifted into a light sleep. At times, it seemed that others were in the room, in the shadows, or near the bed. She thought she saw an old man, with a white beard and great bristling eyebrows, and he seemed familiar to Bell, though she did not know why. She saw a woman, very tall and pale, with a long fall of golden hair hanging in plaits down her back. And there was a hobbit lady, too, with dark hair and fair skin, and when she turned to Bell, her eyes were as blue as an autumn sky. There were these, and more, and at times there seemed to be something else, a presence of some dreadful thing that hunted blindly in the dark, but could not find what it sought. Then all departed, and only Death remained.   
  
The sleet had stopped and it was very quiet. Bell sat dozing, Frodo wrapped tightly in her arms. And Death sat with her, silent as smoke, patient as stone.


	8. Daybreak

**Chapter 8: Daybreak**  
  
  
Bell heard birdsong when she woke. For weeks, only a few stray notes had announced the day, but this was a true dawn chorus, almost raucous in its volume. And although it was yet early, the light at the window was bright, freed from the grey rains and sleet of early March. Winter was over, at last.  
  
She sat motionless, still half asleep. Frodo was in her arms, but his body was cool and lay heavily against her. The blanket she had wrapped around him was wet. She listened for his breath, but heard only birds.   
  
It was Friday morning, and Bell knew that if her husband had found Bilbo, they would be home by afternoon. _How do I tell Mr. Bilbo? _she wondered sadly. _He didn't even have a chance to say good-bye to the boy.   
  
_Bell had lived near Bag End for most of her life, and yet Bilbo's position had been so far above her own that she hardly knew him at all, except as her husband's employer. She knew even less of Frodo, who had lived at Bag End for so short a time, and had been such a quiet, inconspicuous resident. But now her heart ached for them both, for the old hobbit who had loved Frodo as a son, and for Frodo, this orphan who had spent the last hours of his short life with none but a neighbor-lady, a near stranger, for company.  
  
The birdsong quieted as the light grew stronger at the window. Bell sighed and sat up slowly, shifting Frodo's limp body in her arms. And then she heard, or thought she heard, a soft breath escape Frodo's lips.   
  
Frodo had been so still and so cool after all the days of fever, that Bell had been certain he was dead. But she felt such hope at the small sound that she sat straight up and laid her hand over his mouth. _Please, please! _she thought. And through the deceptive chill of cooling sweat on his face, his lips were warm, and he was breathing.   
  
She cradled Frodo in one arm and looked at his face in the growing daylight. He was still ashen, but the sickly luster of fever had left him. His fever had finally broken in the night, drenching him with sweat and casting him into this deep sleep, in which even his breathing had eased. Bell listened at Frodo's chest and although the sound she heard was not healthy, he did not seem to struggle as before. He had turned the corner.  
  
It was fortunate that Bell had held him when his fever broke, for he had soaked through her clothes, instead of the bedding, and she did not need to move him to another bed. She laid Frodo down and fetched another of Bilbo's nightshirts from the wardrobe. As she was dressing him in the dry shirt, Frodo gave a small moan of protest at being jostled.  
  
"I know, dear, I know," Bell murmured. "Just another moment and you can rest easy."  
  
Bell rested Frodo against the pillows and covered him warmly. As she tucked the blankets around him, Frodo's eyes opened halfway. Bell could see that he was exhausted, but his eyes were clear.   
  
She smiled and touched his cool cheek "Frodo," she said. "How do you feel?"  
  
He blinked at her several times, then answered, "Sleepy."  
  
"Your fever has broken, dear. You're getting better."  
  
"Hmm?"   
  
"Yes."  
  
He closed his eyes and a faint smile touched his face. Bell was so happy to see it that she suddenly leaned forward and kissed him, on the forehead and the cheek, as if he had been her own child. "Are you thirsty, Frodo?"  
  
Frodo nodded without opening his eyes. Bell poured him a cup of cool tea, left over from the night before, and he drank it in long, slow swallows. He was asleep again before the cup was empty.   
  
Bell lit the fire and fed wood into the flames until they burned brightly. The room grew warm and cheerful. She drew back the curtains and saw that the sun was beginning to shine, for the first time in days. Winter was over, indeed.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Hamson came a little while later to see how things fared. After looking in on Frodo, they sat at the kitchen table and shared a small breakfast.  
  
"I'll tell you true, Mum," Hamson said, "I didn't expect to find but one living hobbit up here this morning. I've never seen anyone look as poorly as Mr. Frodo did yesterday."  
  
"Aye," said Bell. "For my part, I also didn't think the lad would see another dawn. If the fever hadn't broken last night, I don't think he would've."  
  
Bell and Hamson pondered this thought soberly as they sipped their tea. "And will he be well now, do you think?" Hamson asked after a while.   
  
Bell shook her head. "He's nowhere near to being well. He won't be out of that bed for a long time, and he'll need to be tended and watched. If his lungs fill up again, or the fever comes back…he'll likely not have the strength a second time. Let's hope it doesn't come to that."  
  
They sat in silence for while. The fire popped and hissed behind them with a comforting sound. "I passed a strange night, Hamson," Bell said quietly. "I think I was half-dreaming most of the time, or perhaps I was a bit feverish myself. There were times I thought there were people in the room, some hobbits, some big folk, tall and fair. Never seen anything like it. My mum used to tell tales of strange things happening when someone's close to dying, but I never had cause to believe them myself."  
  
Hamson patted Bell's arm. "You hardly slept for four days. No surprise you were seeing things."  
  
"No, I suppose it's not. Never thought I could come up with such things to see, though. Not by myself."   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Bell roused Frodo once more that morning to give him a little warm broth. He needed to sleep, but he needed to regain his strength as well, and he would never do it on an empty stomach. He drank the broth slowly, and without complaint, and once again, was asleep by the time he had finished it. Bell placed her hand against his forehead, and felt no fever.  
  
She settled herself into the wing chair by the fireplace and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.   
  
The sound of a door closing awakened her, and the murmur of voices in the front hall. She stood up quickly and hurried out of the room, rubbing an uncomfortable crick in her neck.   
  
Hamfast and Bilbo were in the front hall, setting their packs on the floor. Bell felt almost faint with gratitude for the good news she had for Bilbo, but when she saw his face, the words died on her lips.   
  
Bilbo's seemingly perpetual youth was legendary in the Shire, indeed, he had not appeared to age a day in all the years Bell had known him, which was almost all of her life. But the past days of worry and fear had done to him what time could not, and it seemed that all of Bilbo's many years had descended upon him at once. His hair was not white, and his face was not lined, but for the first time in Bell's memory, Bilbo Baggins was _old.   
  
_"Mr. Bilbo!" she gasped, and reached out for him.   
  
Bilbo looked at her, and Bell imagined what he must see: his servant's disheveled wife, her face pale with fatigue, her dress stained and crumpled, reaching out for him, as if to prepare him for a shock. She would not have thought it possible, but Bilbo seemed to age further, right before her eyes.  
  
Bilbo stared at her and his mouth worked soundlessly. Without a word, he brushed past her and hurried down the long hall to Frodo's room.   
  
"Mr. Bilbo!" she called after him. "Wait!"  
  
"Bell!" Hamfast whispered behind her. "Is the boy…?"  
  
"No," she answered quickly, and followed Bilbo.  
  
She found him standing in the doorway of Frodo's room, his hand upon his heart. Frodo's room was cold and empty. A grim array of sickroom provisions still lay upon the bedside table, and the bed was stripped down to the mattress.  
  
He looked at her, his face a mask of grief. "When?" he asked.  
  
"Mr. Bilbo," Bell said, and took him gently by the arm. "He's all right. We moved him to your room."   
  
Bell turned him from the empty room and guided him down the hall. She brought him to the doorway of his own room. "See, Mr. Bilbo? He's all right. His fever broke last night. You see?"  
  
Bilbo took a long, shuddering breath and pressed his hand against his mouth. He closed his eyes for a moment and Bell saw that his hand was shaking. Her heart went out to him, and she patted him on the arm. "'Tis all right, Mr. Bilbo."  
  
Bilbo looked at her, then back to Frodo, as if he didn't quite believe his own eyes. "Is he…will he be…."  
  
"He's as well as he can be right now, sir. He's sleeping soundly, but I don't think he'd mind if you woke him. He's been asking for you, of course."  
  
"Of course…of course," Bilbo whispered, and Bell saw tears in his eyes. "How could I have left?"  
  
"You didn't know, Mr. Bilbo. Anyone would've thought the lad just had a head cold. That's probably all it was, when you left. 'Twas wise you didn't take him with you." She patted him on the back.   
  
Bilbo took her hand and pressed it. "Thank you, Mrs. Gamgee. I don't know how to thank you."  
  
Bell shook her head. "'Twas nothing at all, sir. Go sit with your lad."  
  
Bell watched him cross the room, and she saw that the poor hobbit's legs were shaking as well. He had taken a terrible fright. Bilbo sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, then reached out and took Frodo's hands in his own. He gazed at the boy's face. He brought Frodo's pale hands to his mouth and kissed them, one palm, and the other, and then held them between his own.   
  
"I'm so sorry, my boy," he whispered. "I'm so sorry." With a trembling hand, he caressed Frodo's brow.   
  
Frodo's eyes fluttered and he opened them. He blinked sleepily at Bilbo.  
  
"Frodo," the old hobbit said, and his voice choked with tears.  
  
Frodo's eyebrows raised and he smiled at his cousin. "Don't cry, Bilbo," he whispered and Bilbo laughed through his tears.  
  
"I'm glad you're home," Frodo said.  
  
"I am glad too, my boy," Bilbo said. He leaned forward and wrapped Frodo in an embrace. "I am so glad."  
  
Frodo laid his head on Bilbo's shoulder and closed his eyes. A peaceful smile was upon his face.   
  
Bell left them together. She went to the kitchen and kissed her husband and put the kettle on. It was almost teatime, after all.   
  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
_Author's Note: Believe it or not, there IS more to come!_


	9. Midsummer's Eve

Chapter 9: Midsummer's Eve 

  
In the soft twilight of Midsummer's Eve, Bell sat in her garden with Mrs. Twofoot from next door and Mrs. Cotton, come up from Bywater for the holiday. Before them, Bagshot Row sloped down to Party Field, and as they chatted they could listen to the music and see the lights strung from the Party Tree. It was that fine hour particular to summer evenings, when all the day's color has disappeared from field and wood, but the golden light of windows and doorways seems to shine most brightly, and faraway sounds ring clearly, borne along the velvety air.  
  
They had talked about their husbands, and their children, and their gardens, as they always did, but now the conversation had come around to the occupants of Bag End, as it so often did in that neighborhood, especially when Bell was present. Her association with the Bagginses, through her husband, made her a prime source for information, or so the other wives believed. In truth, Bilbo had always been a quiet neighbor, and Frodo was no different; if not for his illness in March, Bell would hardly have been aware of the lad's presence at all. If the good wives of Hobbiton liked to entertain themselves with speculation about the Bagginses, they were welcome to it, but Bell was certain they would have found the truth most disappointing.   
  
However, tonight they were speaking of Bilbo's adoption of Frodo, and here was a topic about which Bell was happy to speak. A few months ago, she, along with the other wives, had scoffed at the thought of an old (and vaguely notorious) bachelor like Bilbo suddenly developing a sense of paternal duty, and she had clucked her tongue along with those ladies at the impropriety of such a youth being put in Bilbo's care. But since Frodo's illness she had witnessed Bilbo's devotion to the boy each day, and had seen such love between the two that she no longer harbored even the faintest doubt of Bilbo's suitability to be Frodo's guardian. In fact, she could not imagine the boy in safer keeping.  
  
"I would never have thought old Mr. Bilbo capable of it," Mrs. Twofoot was saying. "After all the stories I've heard about him. Running off after dragons, and all that nonsense. Or so he likes to tell."  
  
"Aye," said Mrs. Cotton nodding. "But I hear tell he's like a true father to the boy, and waited on him hand and foot when he was so sick. Isn't that right, Bell?"  
  
Bell was not much of a gossip, and whatever went on within the walls of Bag End in her presence generally stayed there. But she had no qualms about confirming _these _rumors, for they were nothing but the truth.   
  
"Mr. Bilbo's been as fine a guardian to Mr. Frodo as anyone could ask for. To see them together, you would think he was the lad's own father."  
  
Her companions uttered soft sounds of approval.   
  
"It makes me shiver to think what Mr. Bilbo would have done if he'd lost the boy in March," Mrs. Twofoot said.  
  
"Aye," said Bell softly. "'Twould have been a cruel blow."  
  
Her words did not reveal all that she believed in her heart―that Bilbo, in spite of his remarkable longevity and haleness, would never have survived Frodo's death. Dying of a broken heart was the stuff of storybooks, at least among hobbits it was, but Bell did believe that Bilbo _would _have died if he had lost his cousin, perhaps not truly from a broken heart, but certainly from grief, and guilt.   
  
As she sat in the darkening June evening, she remembered well that Friday afternoon in March, and how Bilbo, after seeing Frodo soundly asleep again, had sat with Bell at the kitchen table and made her tell him everything that had happened, as if he had not wished to be spared any moment of Frodo's suffering. Bell had told him what she had been able, but some events of those four long days she had discreetly kept to herself. She could not bear to burden the old hobbit with a description of Frodo's terrible spell, and how he had screamed and begged some unseen tormentor for mercy, nor tell him of how many times the boy had asked why Bilbo was not with him, and when he would finally come. But Bilbo was a canny hobbit, and he seemed to guess at those things that Bell omitted, and when she had finished speaking, he had laid his hand on her arm, and put his head on the table, and wept.   
  
She had spent the day with Bilbo, dictating recipes for convalescent dishes and chest rubs and syrups to him, for he hardly knew how to take care of someone so sick. Later, when she had returned home, Hamfast would tell her the tale of the long journey with Bilbo from the North Farthing, through rain and sleet and moonless night, and how they had abandoned their exhausted ponies near Oatbarton, and gone the last 20 miles on foot, at a hurried pace, and in a grim, anxious silence. Yet Bilbo did not rest that afternoon, but had diligently written down every word of Bell's instructions, and had asked questions and made her repeat many things, until by the end of the day he had almost been staggering with fatigue.  
  
When Bell had imparted all of her advice to Bilbo, and had been confident that she could leave him alone, she had gone to look in on Frodo one last time. He had been sleeping quietly, his cheek turned against the white pillow. Out of habit, Bell had laid her hand on his forehead to check his temperature. His skin had been cool and dry. She had passed her hand from his forehead to his cheek and rested it there, and the bones of his face had seemed as fragile as porcelain beneath her hand. He had always been finely featured, but his illness had lent a new delicacy to his appearance; in repose, by the golden light of the candles, he had been almost faerie-like. In her mind, she had heard Sam's fascinated voice: _Just like an elf, Mummy…that's just what he looked like. An elf.   
  
_Frodo had opened his eyes and looked at Bell and smiled.  
  
"Are you going home now, Mrs. Gamgee?" he had asked in a soft, tired voice.  
  
"Aye, Frodo, I am."  
  
"Your family must miss you. Tell them I am sorry, to have kept you so long."  
  
"I'm sure they understand, dear."  
  
"And will you say hello to Sam? Tell him that I hope he will come see me, when I'm a little better."  
  
"I will. And I'm sure he will. I don't think I could stop him!"  
  
Frodo had smiled and closed his eyes, and Bell had thought he was asleep. But he had opened his eyes after a moment and said, "Mrs. Gamgee, can you come a little closer? I can't sit up on my own."  
  
Bell had leaned towards him as if she were about to whisper in his ear. Slowly, Frodo had reached up and put his arms about her.   
  
"Thank you, Mrs. Gamgee," he had said, and he had kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you for staying with me."  
  
Tears had come to Bell's eyes. "Oh, Frodo," she had said. "Dear lad. As if I could have left."  
  
Frodo had been so weak that even the slight effort of reaching up had made his arms tremble. Bell had held him for a moment and then settled him onto his pillows before he could further tire himself.   
  
"I'll come see you in the morning, Frodo," she had said, and stroked his hair, but he had already fallen asleep.  
  
"And how is the lad doing now, Bell?" Mrs. Cotton asked, startling Bell out of her memories.  
  
"Oh, he's doing rather well. He had that bit of a setback in April, but he seems to be over it now."  
  
In early April, Bilbo had gone out into the garden with Hamfast to discuss plans for the Spring's planting. Frodo had been restless, and had thought himself well enough to get up on his own, although he had not yet attempted it without Bilbo's help. A half an hour after Bilbo had left the boy, he had returned to find his cousin in a dead faint on the floor of the study, in front of the bookcases. Although Bilbo had carried Frodo to bed immediately, the exertion and chill the boy had suffered put him into a feverish stupor for three days, and he was weak and bedridden for another two weeks.   
  
"He's gotten some of his color back, at least," Mrs. Twofoot said. "Although we all know he was hardly a ruddy lad to begin with. And thank goodness his hair has grown back!"  
  
"Aye, that was _my _fault," Bell said with a laugh. "The boy lost so much hair after his fever, as a body sometimes will, and it upset Mr. Bilbo so, that I told him to give Mr. Frodo a little trim, to even it out until it could grow back in. A little trim! I never expected him to crop the lad's hair down to his scalp! Why, poor Mr. Frodo looked like a shorn lamb the first time I saw him!" Indeed, when Bell had seen Frodo that morning, he had turned such a miserable look upon her, his blue eyes seeming so huge and pitiful without the frame of his hair, that she had not known whether to laugh or cry.   
  
"It's horrible, isn't it?" Frodo had asked, and gingerly laid his hands upon his head.  
  
"Oh, Frodo," Bell had said, and then she _had _laughed, for she knew that Frodo had much to go through before he was well, and this would be the easiest burden he would have to bear. "'Twill grow back"  
  
"I suppose so," Frodo had said. "Although I still wish Bilbo had asked _you _to do the job."  
  
"Well, bad haircuts or no," Mrs. Cotton said, "You did well by that boy. He wouldn't be here today if not for you, Bell."  
  
Bell smiled and shrugged. "I only did the best I could, no different than any of you would've done. If Mr. Frodo had been meant to die, he would've. 'Twas more at work than my nursing. He simply wasn't meant to go, not yet."  
  
Mrs. Twofoot and Mrs. Cotton nodded sagely, and Bell found herself remembering the strange dreams that had come to her during those days in March, and the things she had seen and felt on that last dreadful night, when not only Death, but many others, had seemed to watch, and wait, and wonder what would become of this boy. She had told Hamson of those things, but only briefly, and she had never spoken of them to anyone else. For the most part, she dismissed what she had dreamt and seen as the bewildered fancies of an exhausted, troubled mind. And yet sometimes those visions came back to her, and she found herself dwelling on them, and wondering.   
  
"Well, and there's Mr. Frodo now," said Mrs. Cotton. "And your Sam with him, Bell. What a fine lad he's growing up to be, as I always tell you!"  
  
Bell smiled. In the light that spilled from her kitchen doorway, she could see Frodo, and Sam, coming up the path from Party Field. It was yet early, but Frodo still tired easily, and Sam would never have dreamt of letting Frodo walk home by himself. It always warmed Bell's heart to see Frodo looking so well. He was still too thin, and too pale, but a fine flush of color was upon his cheeks, and his eyes were bright, and, as Mrs. Twofoot had said, his hair _had _grown back nicely, a full head of locks that were the glossy, near-black of a ripe chestnut. And there was yet another difference about him, one that Bell had only noticed recently, but that gave her as much joy as the return of his health. That air of sadness, that look of neglect that Bell had sensed upon Frodo at their first meeting two years before, was almost gone. In time, she knew, it would be gone altogether.   
  
"Good evening, Mrs. Twofoot, Mrs. Cotton…Mrs. Gamgee," Frodo said, and smiled cheerfully at them all, but especially at Bell. "It's a perfect night, isn't it?"  
  
"Aye, that it is, Mr. Frodo," Bell said. "That it is."  
  
"And where might Mr. Bilbo this fine evening?" Mrs. Twofoot asked. "I suppose he's down at the party, entertaining the little ones, as always?"  
  
Frodo laughed. "Yes, I believe he is. He wanted to walk with me back to Bag End, but I told him I was already in good hands." He smiled at Sam. "The best, as a matter of fact."  
  
Sam beamed at Frodo and blushed furiously. He edged up to Bell's elbow and whispered to her. "Is it all right if I walk Mr. Frodo back to Bag End? I said that I would read to him, until he fell asleep. Is it all right, Mummy?"  
  
She ruffled Sam's hair affectionately. "Of course it's all right. But don't keep him awake. Don't sit there chattering at the poor lad while he's trying to sleep," she said, and she met Frodo's eyes and they smiled at each other.   
  
The pair said their goodnights and set off up the hill to Bag End, and Bell noted with some amusement that Sam was already chattering away, as Frodo laughed merrily.   
  
"Young Sam is quite dutiful to Mr. Frodo," Mrs. Cotton said. "'Tis a good thing, seeing as he'll most likely have the Gaffer's job one day."  
  
"Aye," said Mrs. Twofoot approvingly.  
  
"Aye," said Bell. But as she watched them melt into the darkness, Frodo and her son, Bell remembered her March dreams, and a chill seemed to steal over the summer evening, and Bell shivered, and wondered. Then it passed, and there was only the gentle blue twilight of Midsummer's Eve and the music of Frodo and Sam's laughter, floating on the warm night air.


	10. Epilogue

**Epilogue**_  
  
January, 1403   
  
_The winter of 1402 was bleaker than any in the memory of even the oldest hobbit. It was not terribly cold, but it was always grey, and raw, and it seemed that weeks passed with no sun, only dismal, penetrating damp. A chill fog stole in, and it covered the fields and wound between the trees and hobbit holes and smials and settled in, as if it intended to stay a while. Even indoors, with a bright fire blazing, it was nearly impossible to rid one's bones of the wet.   
  
As 1402 passed into 1403, a nasty grippe afflicted the Shire. Some said it came from across the river, for the first cases had been in Buckland, but others said it had come in with the fog. Wherever it had come from, by late January hardly a household in the Shire remained untouched by it.   
  
Bell's older children were spared, but her three youngest, May, Sam and Marigold, came down with it, and Bell nursed all of them while Hamfast took on Sam's duties at Bag End. Frodo himself was fortunate enough to avoid the illness, and he came to Bagshot Row and sat with Sam for a little while each day that he was sick. Bell knew that Sam was delighted, even though he told Frodo every day that he shouldn't be "puttin' himself out."  
  
Bell began to hear stories that some folks out in the Marish had died from the illness. Little by little, the news of deaths closer to home reached her ears. Old Mr. Burrows died on January 20, but he had been well past one hundred, and few were surprised. If the grippe hadn't finished him off, something else would have―most likely Old _Mrs. _Burrows. The newborn Grubb baby died, and it was an awful, sad thing, but babies' lives could be like that, sometimes. But then others died, who were young and strong, even Mrs. Twofoot from next door, who had always been as hearty as Bell herself. And throughout the Shire, folks stayed indoors instead of visiting, and such a grey stillness hung over Hobbiton that the only signs of life were the tendrils of smoke rising from each chimney towards the gloomy sky.   
  
On another rainy day at the end of January, when young Marigold was still in bed with her bout of the grippe, Bell sat by the fire nursing a cup of tea. She had a sore throat and had thought the tea would help, but she found that her stomach was queasy and she had no real desire to drink it. She shifted her chair closer to the fire, but it did not take the chill from her bones.  
  
"Daisy!" she called. Her eldest daughter came into the kitchen. She was just a few years shy of her coming of age, and had so many suitors Bell was surprised her head hadn't been turned. It was a good thing that Daisy had outgrown all the giggling silliness of her childhood, and was as sensible as any Gamgee ought to be.   
  
"What is it, Mum?"  
  
"Daisy, I think I'm coming down with a case of it."  
  
"Oh no, Mum!" Daisy said with dismay. "Are you sure? P'raps you're just tired."  
  
Bell rose from her seat. "Aye, I'm sure of it. I'm going to take to my bed early. Look in on your sister, and make sure she eats her supper."  
  
"Do you think you'll be up to eating tonight, Mum?"  
  
"No, my stomach's griping me right now. What I need to do is sleep. A long sleep'll do me a world of good."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Three days later, Bell lay in her bed, looking up at the ceiling. Her fever was down a little, and though she felt more clear-headed than she had in days, she suspected the feeling would not last long. It was an odd thing, to be so sick. Bell had enjoyed robust health all her life, and had even come through the births of her children with admirable vigor. She had seen much illness in her life, but she had little knowledge of it herself. And yet here she was, bedridden at last, too tired to lift her own arm, and feeling as though each new breath became a little harder to take than the last.   
  
Bell wondered if she was dying. If so, she was not sad. She had led a good life, and had been fortunate in her husband and children. She had lived long enough to hold her first grandchild in her arms, Hamson's little girl. His wife had insisted on naming her Hydrangea, of all things, as if _Hydrangea Gamgee _wasn't the most ridiculous, high-flown thing Bell had ever heard. Well, Hamson's wife _was _practically from Buckland, and so what did she expect? She was a nice enough girl, otherwise, and Hamson seemed mad about her, and about his new little daughter, and so Bell was happy. It had been a good life.   
  
The thought of Buckland made Frodo come to Bell's mind. The first thing she had ever heard about Frodo Baggins was that he was from Buckland, and indeed a few hobbits in the neighborhood still considered Frodo almost a foreigner. Certainly the Sackville-Bagginses did, as they were not shy of telling anyone who would listen. Bell herself thought Frodo couldn't have belonged more at Bag End if he had been born there himself, and when Bilbo had made the boy his legal heir, Bell had considered it a right thing for the old hobbit to do, and a fine thing.   
  
Bell had not looked quite so favorably upon Bilbo's sudden disappearance the September before last. He had been as steady a hobbit as any in the Shire during the twelve years that had passed since Frodo's illness, and Bell had been certain that the shock of almost losing the boy had made Bilbo settle down at last. There had been no more trips to meet up with dwarves or elves, or any strange doings at all for that matter, and while Bilbo could still tell the best tales in the Shire, his adventures only took place over a pint at The Green Dragon, or under the Party Tree on a warm summer day.   
  
But in the last year that Bilbo lived at Bag End, folks had begun to notice things. They said they had seen him walking in the fields and woods, under the late-night stars, and that sometimes Frodo had been with him, but more often, he had been alone. They began to wonder what he was doing out there, and whom he was visiting, and why. Hamfast had been discreet as always, especially with that crowd of nosybodies at The Green Dragon, but he had confided to his wife that Bilbo had been spending a great deal of time alone in his study, and had begun to mutter to himself when he thought no one was listening. "He's like someone that's got an itch he can't scratch," Hamfast had told her. "Makes me jumpy, it does." That old wizard had turned up just before Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party, and there had been many eyebrows raised over what _that _could mean. Bell hadn't known what it could mean, but she had certainly stared enough at Gandalf during Bilbo's party. It was said he had not been in the Shire since Bell was a very little girl, but to Bell he had seemed awfully familiar, as though she had just seen him someplace quite recently.   
  
And then, right in the middle of the party, Bilbo had vanished. One minute he had been standing there, looking as miraculously hale as ever, and the next minute he had been gone, and no one had seen him since. And if Frodo knew where his cousin had gone, he certainly did a fine job of keeping it to himself.   
  
For his part, Frodo had seemed to handle Bilbo's disappearance remarkably well. Once he had fended off his relations, he had settled into life as master of Bag End as if he had never been anything else. And if Frodo occasionally did something odd, like holding a birthday party for Bilbo (whom just about everyone assumed was dead), or if he was sometimes seen walking under the stars in the small hours of the night as Bilbo had been wont to do, well, perhaps it was that old Tookish strain coming out in him, or just the effect of having lived with Bilbo for so long. The world was a quiet place now, with no more dragons in it, so no real harm could come of Frodo's small peculiarities, after all.   
  
"No real harm," Bell said and smiled up at the ceiling.   
  
"What's that, Mum?" Daisy asked. She had been dozing in the chair by the fire, and her mother's voice had awakened her.   
  
"No real harm," Bell repeated. She was tired, and it did hurt so to breathe, and it seemed her fever was coming back. Bell saw her daughter standing over her, and felt a cool cloth upon her brow, and she closed her eyes and slept.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Bell felt someone holding her hand. Even feverish, Bell knew these were not Hamfast's calloused hands, or any of her children's sturdy fingers. These were fine hands, with long slender fingers. A scholar's hands.   
  
She opened her eyes and smiled.  
  
"Well, bless my soul!" she said weakly. "Mr. Frodo! When did you get here?"  
  
"A little while ago," he said with a smile. "How do you feel today, Mrs. Gamgee?"  
  
"Ah, well, Mr. Frodo. I've been better in my day. But I think I'll be feeling much better, in just a bit of time."  
  
Frodo nodded, and smiled sadly. They would never say the word between them, but he knew, as she did.   
  
Frodo gently chafed her hand, and they were quiet for a moment. Then Bell asked, "And how are _you _faring, up there at Bag End all by yourself?"  
  
Frodo laughed. "Oh, quite all right, but I'm glad Sam is back. It can get quiet, at times, with Bilbo gone."  
  
"Well, you'll be married soon, and you'll fill all those rooms with children," Bell said.  
  
"Perhaps," Frodo said.  
  
Bell studied Frodo's face. He had never "filled out proper" as they said, and Bell had sometimes wondered if that had just been his nature, or if the illness of his youth had kept him from achieving a good, solid roundness. Slight or not, Bell had always liked his looks, even though she had sometimes been tempted to run up to Bag End and cook for him, and make him eat every bite. He was rosy-cheeked, and bright-eyed and…well, he was _beautiful _. Her Sam had said it first, so many years ago when he was just a little boy, and he had been right, all along. Bell would never tell Frodo this, of course. Hobbits just did not tell each other they were _beautiful. _Instead, she said, "You've grown up into a fine hobbit, Mr. Frodo. Mr. Bilbo did right by you, he did."  
  
Frodo pressed her hand a little. "Well, thank you Mrs. Gamgee," he said. "But _you _must take some of the credit yourself."  
  
"_Me_?" Bell asked, and laughed as well as she could.   
  
"Yes," Frodo said softly. "I would never have grown up into any sort of hobbit, if not for you."  
  
Bell recalled those endless March days, so long ago. She shook her head. "Now Mr. Frodo. 'Twas your own strength and good fortune that saw you through all of that. I just lent a helping hand."  
  
Frodo smiled. "Mrs. Gamgee, I have never told you this. But there was hardly a moment during my illness that I didn't know you were there, somehow. Even when I was half out of my mind, or almost sure that I was about to die, I thought, _It will be all right. Mrs. Gamgee is here. She won't let anything happen. _And the thought always brought me back, from whatever dark place I had gone."  
  
_Whatever dark place…_Bell heard. For a moment, in her feverish state, Bell's mind drifted, and Frodo's voice came to her from out of the past. _Where is the black wolf? _he asked. _His eye…his red eye, _he said. And Bell saw dream images, not thought of in years, of a dark and stony pass, and a sea of fire, and suddenly she was afraid.   
  
Although she was weak, she tightened her fingers around Frodo's. "You will be careful, won't you, Mr. Frodo? You will be careful, now that Mr. Bilbo is gone?"  
  
"Of course I will, Mrs. Gamgee. Don't worry." Frodo smiled, and Bell could see that he thought it was her fever talking. Perhaps it was, but Bell did not think so.   
  
"You call upon my Sam, if you ever need any help," she said. "He's a good lad, and has a fine head on his shoulders. He will always do his duty by you, my Sam will. He's good as gold."  
  
"Yes. He takes after his mother," Frodo said, and Bell relaxed and smiled. She did not know what had come over her. Perhaps it was just the fever, after all. She closed her eyes and sighed.   
  
Bell dozed a little, and when she awakened, Frodo was still with her. In spite of her sleep, she felt very tired.   
  
"Shall I ask your family to come in, Mrs. Gamgee?" he asked.  
  
"Yes. I think so."  
  
Frodo kissed her hand and then leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "Good-bye, Mrs. Gamgee. A safe journey to you."  
  
"And to you, Frodo, dear lad. And to you."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Bell spoke to her children, to Hamson, her first-born, to Daisy, her eldest girl, to Halfred and May and Marigold. Lastly she saw her husband, who had tears in his eyes, for the first time in all the years she had known him. And finally, she spoke to Samwise, her Sam. It was afternoon, and the light of that grey winter was at the window, and she could hear rain upon it as well, but it seemed very far away.   
  
"You've always been my joy, Sam. Do you know that?"  
  
"Aye, Mum. I do."  
  
"You've got a heart of pure gold, Sam, and you always will. I'm sure young Mr. Frodo thinks so, too." Bell thought for a moment, then said, "Stay close to Mr. Frodo, Sam. I think…I think the lad may need your sense someday. And your heart, even more."  
  
"I wouldn't dream of bein' nowhere else," Sam said.   
  
Bell smiled up at her son. "Even when I first laid eyes on you, I thought _This one is different. I don't know how, but he is. _And you are different, my Sam. I've always loved you for it. I think, one day, everyone will know what I've always known."   
  
Bell saw tears roll down Sam's cheeks. "Now," she said. "None of that. I won't have you crying over me. I've been as lucky a hobbit as any that's lived. Your father…your brothers and sisters…and you most of all. Sam…how did I ever deserve so much?"   
  
"Oh, Mum," Sam said, and he leaned down and wrapped his arms around Bell's small shoulders.   
  
"My Samwise," she said. "My Sam."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The rain had stopped and the light had grown quite dim, or perhaps Bell's sight was failing. She could hear a soft hum of voices around her, although she could not make out what they said. Someone held her hand, and she felt a kiss on her cheek, and she smiled and closed her eyes.  
  
Bell realized that the voices had quieted, and now she heard a new sound, like nothing she had ever heard before. Yet she knew it to be the sound of waves, whispering upon a wide shore. She opened her eyes and before her was a great water with no end, and a pale golden sun sparkled upon its surface. A voice called to her and Bell turned around and saw a meadow of tall yellow flowers, tossing their heads in the breeze, and a lady, a hobbit, came toward her through the flowers. Bell knew the lady as well, though she had never beheld her in waking life. A smile was upon her face, and her hand was raised in welcome, and her hair was dark, and her face was fair. And her eyes were as blue as an autumn sky.   
  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
_May Day, 1421   
  
_In the Spring after Bell's death, Sam planted lilies-of-the-valley in the little garden behind Bagshot Row, for the tiny white bells of that flower reminded him of his mother. Frodo saw them one day, and asked Sam to plant a row in the garden at Bag End. He, too, had loved Bell, and had never forgotten her kindness to him during the illness that had almost claimed his life. The flowers thrived in both gardens, and the folk of Hobbiton came to call them "Bell's lilies," which was a much easier thing to say than lilies-of-the-valley, anyway. Every Spring, the neighborhood looked forward to the abundance of bright green leaves and delicate white bells that ran riot from Bag End to Bagshot Row, and delighted in their sweetness upon the mild air.   
  
Frodo and Sam were far from home in the Spring of 1419, and so they missed the blooming of Bell's lilies for the first time. Very little bloomed in the Shire at all, that Spring. But 1420 saw a finer May Day than anyone could recall, and on Sam's wedding day, his bride carried Bell's lilies, just picked by Sam himself from the garden at Bag End.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
On the bright May Day of 1421, Frodo and Sam sat together under the warm sunshine in Bag End's garden, this place where they had both been young once. From their feet to the ends of the garden to far off down the hill, Bell's lilies bloomed, bright green and white, and their fragrance filled the air.   
  
Sam thought it was good to see Frodo out in the sun. He had been sick in March, dreadfully sick, and since then he had not wholly been himself. Frodo often seemed tired now, no matter how much he rested, and Sam knew that he was sometimes in pain, although his master would not admit it. They had wandered far together, and some part of Frodo had never quite come back. He had been badly hurt, and his wounds would not heal. Sam did what he could for his friend and master, but little that he did seemed to help. Sam clung to hope, because it was his nature, but in his heart, Sam knew the truth. Frodo was dying.  
  
Frodo's eyes were half-closed, as if the warm sun and heavy fragrance had made him sleepy. His face was too pale, and too thin, but peaceful, almost content. "I'm so glad you planted these lilies, Sam, all those years ago," he said drowsily.  
  
"Aye," Sam answered. "I never thought they'd fare quite so well, though."  
  
"Of course they fare well," Frodo said. "They are blooming for Bell Gamgee. She was a wonderful lady, Sam. I have never forgotten her."  
  
"She did care for you too, Mr. Frodo," Sam said, and Frodo smiled and closed his eyes and fell silent.   
  
After a little while, Frodo said softly, "I have been uncommonly lucky in my life, Sam."  
  
"How's that, Mr. Frodo?"  
  
Frodo opened his eyes and looked at Sam. "Whenever I have been most in danger, and most desperate…I have always had a Gamgee at my side. That is uncommon luck."  
  
Sam smiled. "'Tis we Gamgees who have been the lucky ones, I think," he said.   
  
Frodo sighed and his eyelids grew heavy. He laid his head on Sam's shoulder, and Sam put his arms about him, and Frodo slept, in peace.  
  
All around them, Bell Gamgee's lilies bloomed under the May sunshine. They would bloom every May, long after Frodo was gone from that place. And even after Sam and all of his descendants, and indeed, hobbits themselves, were no more, Bell's lilies covered the hill every Spring, in memory of that good lady.   
  
_The End   
  
_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
_Afterword:   
If you've been following this story all along, I hope that you were not too upset/ticked off by Bell's death! When I decided to write a Sick Frodo fic from Bell's perspective, I felt that I had to say something about what ultimately happens to her. It's obvious that "the Gaffer" is living alone by the time the main exploits of Lord of the Rings take place, so, assuming that hobbits don't get divorced, Bell must be dead by the time Frodo and Sam leave on the Quest. She would still have been relatively young for a hobbit, so she couldn't have died of old age, and I certainly never imagined her dying in childbirth with Marigold…that would have meant Sam had grown up without a nurturing, maternal figure in his life, and I don't think Sam would have been "our" Sam if that had happened! Tolkien tells us absolutely nothing about Bell; a friend of mine recently said that to Tolkien. she acted as "a placeholder on Sam's family tree." It was satisfying to create a character for her and to give her a peaceful (and hopefully plausible) end.   
  
Thank you thank you thank you to ALL of the wonderful people who have followed and reviewed this story! Your enthusiasm and appreciation was very encouraging, especially since I had bits and pieces of this story languishing for months in my hard drive, and had never thought I would get it off the ground. __I recognize many of you as other writers of H/C fics and you've definitely been an inspiration. A little word of recognition to Golden Wolf, whose The Heir was the very first fanfic I ever read, and contained many YoungSickFrodo moments (including pneumonia!) that no doubt influenced this story.   
  
After writing this story, I realized that a Sam POV story I wrote several months ago, named Portrait, is a nice companion piece to this one. I hope to get around to posting it here on ff.net, but look for it in the Drama section, because it's not strictly angst.   
__  
A Word about "Grippe:": In English-speaking countries, "grippe" is an outdated word for influenza. The word itself is French, but my dictionary said its roots are in Old German, so I figured I could get away with it (I understand Tolkien was not a big fan of French-derived words!). "Influenza" just sounded too high-falutin' and "flu" sounded too modern. Influenza can be an extremely dangerous disease, and people do die from it. If you're ever in the mood to have your hair stand on end, read some of the stories of the influenza pandemic of 1918. They'll keep you up at night!  
  
A Word about the Characters' Ages: The main action of this story takes place in March, 1390 (Shire Reckoning). Frodo is 21 years old, and has been living with Bilbo since just before his 21st birthday in September, 1389, so he has only been at Bag End for six months. Bilbo is 99 and Sam is nine. Assuming that hobbits did not marry until after their "coming of age" at 33, Bell would have to be at least 58 years old (her oldest son, Hamson is 24).   
  
Throughout the story, others refer to Frodo as a "boy" or a "lad." This is not to imply that he is immature! Given hobbits' lifespan and culture, I think any hobbit of only 21 years would be considered little more than a youth of 16 or so in our own society. However, while I think Frodo at 21 would definitely have still been a boy, he would have been a very mature one, especially given his natural intelligence and his early experience with grief.  
  
And PS: I had always intended for one of the aftereffects of Frodo's illness to be hair loss…but seeing Elijah Wood's inexplicable new "do" gave me all the visual reference I needed!   
  
Thank you again for reading!_


End file.
